Recomposing the Web: Tools and Techniques to Regain Agency in a Software-Driven World
Ben Grosser
May 25, 2022
ALUO
Ljubljana, Slovenia
1: PRESENTATION -- SOFTWARE RECOMPOSITION AS PRACTICE
2: OBSERVE (rounds 1, 2, 3)
3: (AB)USE
4: WRAP and STICKERS
Link to Google Doc for sharing work (link will be removed after workshop)
WORKSHOP ABSTRACT
Over the last twenty years, software has enabled the web, animated the smartphone, and made possible, in the words of one big tech CEO, a world "more open and connected." Yet software, which is now used by billions across the planet every day, has embedded within it the capitalist ideologies of those who make it. Coming out of growth-obsessed entrepreneurial culture from Silicon Valley in the United States, today's software wants what its creators want: more. This want is fundamental, driving how software works, what it does, and what it makes (im)possible. The result is a global populace now dependent on software platforms that intentionally activate within users a "desire for more"—a need software meets with its "like" counts and algorithmic feeds and endless notifications, all in service of what big tech most seeks to realize their hopes and dreams: more users, more data, and more profit.
While periodic cries to #deletefacebook or otherwise disconnect from online platforms gains occasional waves of attention and press, few (are able to) disengage. Given this, an alternative approach is the author's artistic strategy of "software recomposition," or the treating of existing websites and other software systems not as fixed spaces of consumption and prescribed interaction but instead as fluid spaces of manipulation and experimentation. Through a series of software observation and online performance exercises, this workshop will introduce methods, tools, and techniques of software recomposition that anyone can use to gain renewed agency over the software systems they use every day.
No coding or other special experience is required to participate. Laptop recommended (smartphone is minimal requirement)
0: PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS and WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
Primary Objective:
learn how to analyze what software wants from you ...
so we can give it something else entirely
Why??
software sets conditions of possibility
how software is designed has dramatic effects on users, democracy, humanity
we engineer software but it engineers us back
important to develop a capacity to notice how software pushes us
what does software want?
who most benefits and who is made most vulnerable?
software art offers a model, can act as "creative destruction" that reveals what software wants
software recomposition as method
doesn't require coding!
Duration: 10m
1: PRESENTATION--
SOFTWARE RECOMPOSITION AS PRACTICE
Whether it's a count of followers, friends, retweets, or likes, today's social media users are constantly confronted with metrics that measure our sociality online. But what are the effects of these numbers on how we feel, what we say, or who we friend? Further, who most benefits--and who is made most vulnerable--from/by a software-driven world that forever encourages accumulation, inducing in users an insatiable "desire for more?" This talk will examine these questions through several of the artist's works that critically intervene in and/or extract from the material products and byproducts of the world's most profitable tech companies. From code-based net art to epic video supercuts, these works help uncover how a simple like count on the Facebook interface ends up amplifying Silicon Valley's ideological obsession with growth in ways that threaten everything from individual liberty to the future of our planet. Along the way, these works not only illuminate our emerging culture of software, but also simultaneously make possible a renewed opportunity for user agency over the technological systems we engage with every day.
2: SOFTWARE OBSERVATION
Round 1: Primary Actions and What's Easy/Difficult?
Pick your most used social media platform (or, if you don't use social media, your most used app/website/etc). Identify a primary action you do within it. How does the software's design guide the way you complete that task? What does it make easy/easier? What does it make hard/harder? Take 5 minutes, add your entry to the Google Doc (w/ your name), and then we'll look at a few of your entries together.
Examples:
- Facebook, liking a post, no dislike button
- Instagram, posting a photo, sharing a link
- Twitter, posting a status, managing typos/mistakes
Round 2: Interface Visual Analysis
With a partner, collectively take time looking at the interface of one or both of the software system(s) you identified in Round 1. Look for clues in that interface for how the system is guiding you. What does it suggest you should do? Or how you should be thinking? Things to look for include text on buttons, prompts in dialog boxes, choices in a drop down list, location of interface items (e.g. what's in the top left?), color used to draw attention, etc. Add one or more screenshots to the Google Doc with a description of what you're seeing and your names. We'll look at a few of your findings.
Examples:
. facebook notifications feedback loop
. duplicate status
. add friends
. on your mind
. video too short
. 26 tabs
. was live
. get more followers
. watch more
Related resource: Perfect Users Facebook Group
Round 3: What Does Software Want?
With a partner, pick the same or different software systems and think about this question: What does this software want from me as a user? You can use aspects you found in rounds 1 and 2 to guide you on this, or look for new clues. For example, if Facebook's button text tells you "get more followers" or "add friends", a conclusion about what Facebook wants is that it wants you to accumulate connections (rather than weed your list and keep it to, say, 100 total).
Other examples:. FB status prompt "What's on your mind?" shows FB wants you to be personal
. FB reactions interface wants accurate emotional reporting
. FB notifications feedback loop wants endless contributions of content
. Twitter 280 char limit wants short messages
. Instagram not making comment URLs clickable wants to keep people *here*
Now that you've identified examples of what the platform wants, think about the following question in relation to what you've found: Who is it for? Who most benefits from it and who is made most vulnerable? Post a description of what you've found to the Google Doc (including screenshots if useful). We'll go around the room and discuss.
Duration: 20m plus discussion3: (AB)USE - SOFTWARE RECOMPOSITION as PERFORMANCE
Now that you've identified and analyzed a software platform and what it wants, devise a plan for a multi-day performance that could be executed using the platform. What might your set of actions (and/or the reactions it provokes) reveal about how that platform works---or who it works for?
For example, Twitter is intended to enable short, 280 character messages in a public broadcast space that connects anyone anywhere in real-time. What if you instead used Twitter as your personal diary space, stringing together 10s or 100s of individual Twitter messages in order to record private thoughts? In another example, consider that Facebook status entries and its newsfeed are designed to encourage posts that get "likes" and grow friend networks. A response could be to devise a system that provokes your connections to unfriend you and/or hide your posts. In both examples, what would the performances start to reveal about how those systems are working? What questions would they provoke others to ask?
Once the groups have had a chance to work, add a description to the Google Doc and we'll share/discuss.
Examples:
Kyle McDonald: keytweeter, Going Public
Kim Asendorf: Riding the API at the Limit
Jonas Lund: Selfsurfing (article about it)
Lauren McCarthy: Follower
Hasan Elahi: Tracking Transience
Eva and Franco Mattes: For Internet Use Only
Winnie Soon: Unerasable Images
Jeff Thompson: TCPDUMP
Guido Segni: The Artist is Typing
Jill Magid: Evidence Locker
Ben Grosser: Please help me make this status a future Facebook memory, 1 year later
30min + discussion
4: WRAP and STICKERS!
