Future Vision Online Exhibition, 11 Feb - 11 Mar 2021

Video 10'35"

Keywords: Autonomy, Agency, Data Visualization, Self-knowledge.

My intention with my project "Man+=Machine" was to create a reflection and self-exploration on how data is a powerful, and yet somehow, an invisible asset to most of us that is constantly being used and explored by third parties and interests in order to predict, control, and influence unconscious aspects of our behavior and psychology, and imposing, at least on some level, a new type of tech-fueled personal powerlessness and lack of agency.

By collecting my own data and using the same mechanism on my personal habits, I was able to create a clear vision of how I was functioning, which irrational forces were having an influence over my behavior, which kinds of inner conflicts and tensions I could be possibly be dealing with and how I could orient myself through life more according to my own values and desires.

The project ended up becoming a photograph of a specific moment of my life that I was not only questioning my own thoughts and desires but also how they were being shaped and influenced by actual culture and technological landscape. It manifested itself into a mechanism of behavioral and psychological mapping that could be capable of communicating and expressing, to myself and others, relevant indagations of current times.

Intense physical activities such as running always have been my default way of dealing with life’s frustrations and feelings of powerlessness. Based on this knowledge, I decided to track data from my daily outside running with a fitness band and also, data from my mobile phone screen time. I wanted to bring myself awareness of both how my attention was being drawn to screens and how I was breaking away from it through outside physical exercises.

All the data collected was used as input into several data-visualization Processing sketches that I have created specifically for the project and combined with other elements such as photographs, sound recordings, and musical patterns that later were all manifested into a larger audiovisual composition. The project was part of my Fine Art Master’s Degree programme at Prague College and has already been exhibited at Pragovka Gallery (Prague, Czech Republic) and at T56 Gallery (Eindhoven, Netherlands).