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