Data as Culture - Art that uses data as a material
MYPOCKET raises questions about how predictive technologies, particularly those that use our personal data, shape our choices through the assumptions they feed us. Custom software, written by the artist, predicted his potential (and catalogued his actual) spending patterns for a two-year period. The Transactions Feed publicly posts each of these economic interactions along with the percentage of transactions accurately predicted. The Transactions Graph visualises data corresponding to the time of each transaction demonstrating relationships between them. A collection of original marked receipts of correctly predicted transactions, or ‘predicted objects’, bears witness to the system’s accuracy.
The work provides a revelatory self-portrait, exposing how much we divulge about ourselves through our own consumer choices, the trails of data we create, and their potential value to others.
Courtesy of the artist. MYPOCKET is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation.