humanmemory

Artist Statement

Phoebe Hewertson, (b. 2003) 

Ph033b3 (website), 2024 

Website 

In an increasingly digital era, we seem to be spending a lot more time online and subsequently we are creating a lot of data. Data that we rarely consider, or analyse, yet that represents us in an online realm and is collected and categorised by state-controlled agencies and tech companies (algorithms, marketing, etc.) (Seaver, 2018). This led me to question how I can look to the positives of digital technologies mass collection of data on us, and more so; how my online identity exceeds my online profiles and the information that I willingly upload? I decided that a way to use the data for my benefit would be in the form of a memory aid, as a means to understand myself better. Ph033b3 (website) is an exploration of randomly selected periods in my life through a comparison of my (faltering) memory to the data that was collected on me from that time, investigating what traces of me are left in the data that I produce.  

Source 

Nick Seaver (2018) “What Should an Anthropology of Algorithms Do?” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp 375-85.  Seaver 2018.pdf 

Digital Subjects

These digital footprints or online traces are left behind whenever we: conduct a search on a browser like Google; enable location services for a specific website; log into our social media accounts to see what to read; buy clothing, airline tickets, or concert tickets; or make a call or send a text on our mobile phones, among other activities.

The classifications and categorisation of this data turns us into digital subjects; who we are online.

Do our digital identities really represent us though?

All backgrounds & content

made my me <3