User:Mihail Bakalov/Trimester 4/GraduateResearchSeminar/ProjectProposal2

RESEARCH DIRECTION

Through researching the filtered information provided by Facebook's newsfeed I want to explore how it shapes my perception and constructs my identity.

Introduction:

I would like to take as a starting point Plato's Allegory of cave which presents the idea of a construction of a referential notion of the world. More particular how the people ascribed forms to the shadows taken to be real, which are as close as the people get to viewing reality. The same thing can be seen nowadays happening in on-line social networks. Users by feeding information to the system, such as likes and interests are presented with a world which is suppose to be focused on what they entered as input. The feed that people are presented with is a filtered version, shifted and translated by the platform and it's invisible function of its apparatus.

Through the rest of my studies in PZI I would like to investigate how these invisible operation on Facebook construct my identity and shape my perception. Focusing on how this information reflects and effects me, I would like to use this mediation of my interests as a bases for my graduation project. The estimated outcome would be making a fictional biographical story out of this filtered world, a mutation of the second life led on Facebook.

RESEARCH QUESTION

As we spend more and more time in on-line social networks I want to research what is the influence projected on us from the information that we are presented there. I would like to find out what kind of reality are these components constructing for me and in return how does that structure my on-line identity.

PROJECT PROTOTYPING

My project uses the output of Facebook's newsfeed, but would not deal with the real inner operation of it. Taking the content from this environment and social circle and focusing on the idea that it lays an effect on me. The reflection of the components from the newsfeed I would like to use as constructing my self-portrait. By using the data, I don't want to do data analysis, but rather that I want to use the information as a bases for my narrative. The portrait would be a layout/a map of all the content placed on it. It's specific order will be decided by me, it would reflect the normal way I read the newsfeed. The content that enters the narrative is not all the content displayed to me by the algorithm, it's only the content that I have read and seen. This selection of the posts is based on what has influenced me. During my current exploration I found ways to point out some of the method which are typical for and through which the system is functioning. I am taking the element of non-sequentiality in the results that the facebook newsfeed produces and using it in my approach of building the self-portrait of influencing external elements. Taking the out of sequence element and pushing/taking it to the extreme, breaking the feed into small bits, which are left for the user to be explored in a non-linear way. constructed identity. The outcome will lead into an audio-visual narration/film/essay.

Possible narration structure: A post from the newsfeed will be broken down into sentences. each sentence will fill a pixel. A arrangment of the bits of the post would be linear, one after another horizontally put.

Prototypes:

1st tryout: In this experiment each image contains a newsfeed. It has the visuals taken from the post and the narration, text turned into speech. https://vimeo.com/115192688

2nd tryout: In this experiment the possible narration structure previously described is applyed to the structure of the portrait. https://vimeo.com/115536385

3rd tryout: This is a working prototype, not a mock-up. It has the same narration structure as the 2nd prototype. A person can navigate through the image with the arrows on the keyboard. https://vimeo.com/116465103