Play-back (2020)
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Play-back’ is a Chrome extension game developed in response to Zoom's decision to withhold end-to-end encryption for free users, citing a commitment to collaborating with law enforcement. During the company’s financial results announcement for the first quarter of 2020, Zoom CEO Yuan stated, “Free users, for sure we don’t want to give that because we also want to work together with the FBI, with local law enforcement in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose.”
‘Play-back’ actively listens to conversations and compares the words spoken to a list of keywords and phrases employed by the Department of Homeland Security to monitor social networking sites and online media for potential threats against the U.S. Users earn points for each word they incorporate into the conversation.
Made in collaboration with Kristian Jones and Marcus Gilroy-Ware.
Covid Selfie (2020)
How does digital culture contribute to the development and implementation of new and pervasive technologies? To what extent can the emergence of online trends be attributed to social phenomena, and how many are the result of orchestrated efforts?
During the pandemic, companies specialising in facial recognition faced a significant challenge in enhancing their algorithms to recognize individuals wearing masks. One notable technique involved the mass scraping of images from social media platforms, with pre-labeling facilitated through the use of hashtags.
The Covid Selfie project leverages thousands of web images sourced from social media platforms featuring hashtags such as '#covidselfie,' '#pandemicfashion,' and '#wearamask.' These images are employed to train an image-generating AI, enabling it to produce realistic depictions of humans wearing facemasks.
Made in collaboration with Kristian Jones.
Out of Office (2018)
“Out of Office” consists of 30,000 envelopes to explore mass communication. Using blank white envelopes to represent the often-impersonal and invasive feel of automated messages, this installation conveys the often-conflicting rules that govern our digital and physical existences – asking ‘what would happen if they overlapped?’. It also raises questions around the often-overlooked physical consequences of digital communication, such as the environmental impact.
Commissioned by Creative Youth Network as part of ‘Creative Futures’, their young artist development programme.
Instability (2018)
Built using a binary sequence taken from the artist’s thumbprint, “Instability” examines ways in which we adapt and modify our online identities: filtering, cropping and editing to depict often unrealistic versions of ourselves. This piece questions the sustainability and consequences of this practice, highlighting its fragility and asking how far we’ll go.
Commissioned by Creative Youth Network as part of ‘Creative Futures’, their young artist development programme.
Abyss (2017)
"Abyss" is a collection of paper sculptures inspired by theories of emergence and the capacity to employ simple, repetitive processes to generate complex forms. This collection delves into concepts like generative design and cellular automata, drawing inspiration from the works of architect Michael Hansmeyer and computer scientist Stephen Wolfram. "Abyss" seeks to amplify the algorithmic design processes often overlooked in nature, such as fractals, aiming to portray the immersive and infinite qualities inherent in these natural phenomena.