Updates

Just some updates,

I have since finishing making my pilot designed what I want the final project to look like, in which all the elements in the pilot are linked together as a cohesive whole, in which the user can literally scroll through that month of my life. This gives a more interactive feel to the project than it is currently. (Click on the images to see the larger version)

Updates

Geo-tagging flikr photos on a Map

I have managed to find a application that links to the photo geo-tagging app on Flikr through an Iframe, which allows you to tag a photo to a particular location on a map (google maps).

http://mapaset.4bcj.com/getmapmyset.aspx?sid=72157625323618832&suggest=true

The data updates automatically, so when I update the geo-tag map on flikr, it automatically updates the map on my page, with the photos and the location of where it is. (this can be seen on the prototype)


Blog-Loc

Also, I have implemented an application called blog-loc which allows you to update your location via GPS signal , thus mapping you on google maps (this can also be seen on my prototype)

http://breakmyfall.0sites.net/MyDataFlow/index.html

Project Proposal

Project Proposal: ‘MyDataFlows’

I am going to be making a ‘sousveillance’/ self-surveillance websites that invite the gaze in, in which I subject myself for a month towards using different social networking tools and attempting to show aspects of myself in the public gaze. This is in a sense a social networking media project in which through my use of those technologies available on the web I promote the idea that these social networking tools encourage transparency, whereby the private becomes part of the public. The point of this project is to show how my physical-digital lifestyle can be projected onto the internet, in which my use of these social networking tools, as well as GPS location tools create new systems in which we self-govern our own identity. We are no longer in a situation where the CCTV camera track you, but rather how we use self-surveillance tools to track ourselves and how we govern ourselves through those technologies. In a similar fashion to Hasan Elahi I hope to show how by re-appropriating different social networking tools (Twitter, Flikr and Facebook), as well as tools freely available on the internet  that utilize things like google maps (like blogloc) are all forms of self-surveillance.  But more than this epitomises this change to controll societies whereby we now live in a transparent society, being encouraged to share our lives and sense of identity on the internet.

I will combine all the following elements:

1. ·         Status Updates from Twitter
2. ·         Images from my Flikr Account
3. ·         A GPS Signal Map
4. ·         An Image Track (displaying all the places I have been)
5. ·         Facebook updates (I have not found a way to implement this yet)

These will all be combined into a website to show how these new technologies create new conditions in which we subject ourselves to external gazing, by uploading our thoughts, our location and our images onto the web. For that month you will be able to track me, watch me and see my thoughts.

I have built an initial prototype showing how I have used RSS feeds and different plug-ins to link to my external social networking sites as well as my own GPS location. This is an experiment in which I show how by using these different tools I invite the gaze in, tracking me, watching what I do, and what I am thinking at any point in time ; you have access to my inner thoughts, images and GPS location. Although I imagine the final website being more of a fractured, multi-layered website, but this still illustrates how I will grab data from all of these social networking sites. (see Interface diagrams)

The title ‘MyDataFlows’ is used to illustrate how flows of your data are projected and uploaded onto the internet and can be used to create a complete picture of my life, a transparent 'gateway' into how I use these different technolgies.

Through these tools I hope to show how we have moved from a disciplinary society where we are conditioned by our environment (the nursery, the school, the barracks, the university) by top-down surveillance, towards a situation whereby control mechanisms are transformed into consumer products (such as Twitter and Flikr, and even BlogLoc) whereby we subject ourselves to external gazing and illustrate how we have moves towards a transparent society. All in, I hope through the act of participating with these new technologies I show how the nature of information sharing has changed whereby we live in a participatory culture where we subject ourselves to external gazing.

Interface diagrams to follow....

Experimenting with Plugins

I am experimenting with plug-ins. For example I have used blogloc javascript plugin to update directly to my blog, a dynamic tracker which updates your location either by the web or through your phone.

This was fairly easily done the website automatically generates the code, and you can edit the dimensions, therefore potentially this map could cover the whole screen:

http://breakmyfall.0sites.net/MyDataFlow/index.html

My Data Fragments

In a similiar style to jody zollen offer a fragmented narrative as the user clicks on one of these images, delving into my fragmented identity on the internet, the user constantly trying to make sense of those images.

Link to my website: http://breakmyfall.0sites.net/MyDataFlow/index.html

Website Analysis: the inviting in of the gaze

I am kind of envisioning the project, as, a sort of 'personal' social networking site (I like the name mydataflows or something), with elements of all these social network sites integrated, projecting photos I have taken, status updates, profile picture changes, check-in software. I think to keep it manageable it may be over a certain period of time that this 'physical-digital' social network will go on for, in which I make use of these different elements. 

A new turn

Taking a new approach to the project, instead of making it structured like an interface, taking a more abstract and transparent approach to the project in how data about yourself becomes part of a flow of data on the internet/cyberspace.

However in terms of the project, I am a cross-road do I look at contemporary forms and look at the flows of data that, the different way I project myself on the internet? And visualize this as a novel of my life on the internet, in which flows of images, narratives, status updates become jumbled up flowing towards the user, in which the individual user can point at a piece of flowing data (and stop the flow) and look at where this is sourced from and at what time. 

But visually this flowing of data illustrates to the user that this information become in-grained into a system, whether you ask for it or not such as in Twitter, Facebook, Flikr and so on.

Almost creating a narrative flow of the various ways I can project myself, and how this creates a picture of myself.

This information becomes projected towards the user inviting the gaze in towards all these fragments of information that make up my life. We are no longer in a situation where we are watched from above, but literally this flow of data is created by our consumption of these mediums such as Facebook and Twitter, Flickr and so on. And other users have no choice but to look at this data.

In this way I was thinking of creating a website called MyDataFlows

In which essentially you have a frame in which flows of images, text and other data (in chronological order, as they have been uploaded are displayed to the user). The user can click on the information to see when this particular information was uploaded. Essentially a long strip of data flowing across the screen, the user is presented to it whether they like it or not. This will be collected from my status feed, how I am feeling modes, twitter feeds, photo feeds and so on – in order to create this narrative.

Perhaps set up with data flowing across the screen (left to right) with data, images status updates overlayed over each other, corresponding to the time, in which the user can click, or hover over their mouse to see where the data is from.

The flows of data can be jumbled, or sourced corresponding to where they have been collected from.

Or for example a record, a narrative of the places I’ve been or the things I have said on Twitter or social networking sites – they in a sense make up a narrative of what I’ve been doing, what I have said and where I have been

The main problem is how I would source this data, would it be manually put in by me, or sourced automatically from these different websites.

Mapping the digital identity

Structure

This is just a portion of what the possible structure of the website where the user can move from node to node, looking at how the person's life is codified, ultimately, to see how the technology creates a network of the virtual self, a data double or what Mark poster calls 'data identities', David Lyon sums it up:

Lyon: 'The more 'postmodern' versions of surveillance theory, as Staples says, underscore technology-based, body objectifying, everyday, universal kinds of surveillance. To review these: the technolgies make surveillance emnable to automation and place increasing reliance upon the data-double or the virtual self. [...] As new sorts of surveillance seep into all life-spheres, some engage in self surveillance of quite precise and systematic kinds. Think of keep-fit fanatics, for instance, who constantly check times, pressures weights and trates, or of the ways which some women use scales, body-fat indicators and colorie charts in forms of low-level self-surveillance (Bordo 1993)

Link: Surveillance Studies: an Overview

I was thinking another node would link to consumption/purchases, on-line receipts and other data would suggest more things for the user to purchase based on those purchases.

Another node may lead to all the chat conversation the user has had with work colleagues, illustrating how social interaction has become codified into data.

Or a link to a work profile and personal profile: 'An individual may choose to use more than one projected digital persona. People may present themselves differently to different individuals or groups on the net; or at different times to the same people; or at the same time to the same people. One projection may reflect and provide close insight into the person's 'real personality', while other personae may exaggerate aspects of the person, add features, omit features, or misrepresent the personality entirely.'

Link: http://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/DigPersona.html

Or even the users travel history, a globe where the user can see through travel reciepts where the subject has been.

Or even a mood node in which how a user projects how they are feeling on the internet.

Ultimately, what both requesting and requiring personal information highlight is the centrality of producing, updating, and deploying consumer profiles…. And although Foucault warns of the self-disciplinary model of punishment in panoptic surveillance, computer profiling, conversely, oscillates between seemingly rewarding participation and punishing attempts to elect not to divulge personal information. (Elmer, 2004, pp. 5-6)

Source: http://michaelzimmer.org/files/Zimmer%20Aalborg%20talk.pdf

Foursquare

Check in service (a type of a locative media) that people can use to find their friends, but also by adding new places contribute to the mapping of a particular place, thus through their own consumption of this technology add to the service.

Surveillance to Dataveillance

Source: http://danm.ucsc.edu/web/bsalmond/0607/bms-201-assign%204