Declarations ofinterDepenDenceExperiments in Networked Interdividualism

John ryan

MFA Media Design Practices [Lab Track]

Thesis Projects & Paper

http://thesis.johndryan.me

DECLARATIONS OFINTERDEPENDENCEExperiments in Networked Interdividualism

JOHN RYAN

MFA Media Design Practices [Lab Track]

Thesis Projects & Paper

http://thesis.johndryan.me

STATEMENT 1PROJECTS 7CLUSTER AS NODE 9

YOUBY.US 11

QUORUM BROWSING 13

MULTI-PERSONAL COMPUTING 15

SHARED-SELF COMMUNICATION 17

PANOPTICAM 19

MEDIATED MIRROR 21

CROWDSOURCED ALPHA PORTRAITS 23

PAPER 271 | INTRODUCTION 29

2 | INDIVIDUALISM 31

3 | THE STRATEGIES OF INDIVIDUALISM INHERENT IN THE SOCIAL WEB 35

4 | TACTICS: BEYOND AN INDIVIDUAL ISTIC SOCIAL WEB 43

5 | CONCLUSION 49

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 51

1

STATEMENT

Since Hobbes’ Leviathan, Locke’s Second Treatise, and Smith’s

Wealth of Nations, the individual (her self-interest, self-ownership,

and self-agency) has been embedded unquestioningly as the

node-level building block of the systems we inhabit: interfaces,

networks, nations…

The Internet was to usher in a new era — disrupting boundaries at

every scale from the Westphalian state to the Lockean Self — and

creating utopian conditions for a cybernetic post-individualism:

collective consciousness, the global brain.

Instead, the contemporary Internet is an ideological Frankenstein:

globally-connected collectivism awkwardly fused with neoliberal

individualism. We are more interconnected than ever before but

our interactions and experiences are discretely individual: radically

tailored and meticulously bespoke.

This interdividualism places the individual at the centre of a new

economy of information, where personal data and self-expression

become currency, and market-practices are applied to social

relations. The self/citizen/user/agent is repositioned as the pivotal

hub in their customised version of the network, which overlaps

and interconnects with other network instances, providing every

node with a perspective of connectedness that is centred around

the individual.

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This ubiquitous foregrounding of the I, anecdotally captured in

Apple’s product-naming (iPod, iPhone, iLife, etc.), is present at

every level of the network stack, from social profile to selfish

interface to solipsistic device. Steve Job’s Leviathan sees the

sovereign consumer reigning over their own personalised reality;

a representation of the ‘social’ that uniquely serves their specific

tastes and desires.

Challenging User-Centered Design’s assumption that agency

must always lie with the individual, my work speculates as

to how networked devices, interfaces and systems might be

designed with alternative ideological foundations. Incorporating

collaborative, collective, and self-effacing interactions, a series

of projects (injected at various points across the network stack)

counteract, disrupt, and offer alternatives to a technologically-

embedded individualism.

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PROJECTS

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A series of experiments, prototypes, and systems designed and implemented

across the network stack.

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CLUSTER AS NODE

How might a social network be designed to remove individual

representation completely? What might it be like to only be represented in

collective form; where the smallest node of the network is a merged group of

individuals; a collective entity?

This project explores these ideas through graphical mockups of ‘cluster’ profi les

across a number of real and fi ctional networks.

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YOUBY.US

YouBy.Us is a wiki social network. It inverts the model of existing platforms in

which a user’s profi le and postings are authored and curated by the individual

themselves to present a particular image, YouBy.Us allows your social circle to

create and edit your profi le, but restricts you from having any direct input. It is a

social media platform in which your friends—not you—author your profi le.

“Discover your crowd sourced self… Let the network defi ne you.”

Contribute at www.youby.us

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QUORUMBROWSING

This series of investigations seeks to disrupt the selfi sh interface of the web

browser. What happens when our private browsing experiences are shared with

others, or when we need to physically gather a group together to access the web?

One Quorum Browsing project is a website that requires a critical mass of viewers

from the same location to access it simultaneously before it becomes accessible.

The individual act of interacting with a site in a browser is made collective (and

social) by requiring the recruitment of others to access the site at the same time—

and in the same place—as you. Try the live prototype at: wewewe.johndryan.me

Another of these projects disrupts the cursor as an icon of self-agency and

individual control.Instead, it provides an experience of others’ interactions through

a shared cursor that every connected user collectively controls to complete a

shared task.

15

MULTI-PERSONALCOMPUTING

The screen, the mobile device, the personal computer, the network node: the

devices that mediate our interactions are individualising by their very nature.

What alternatives, or tactical repurposing, might allow-for, encourage or demand

collaborative interactions? This series of prototypes each incorporate affordances

that require collaboration.

The Multi-User Keyboard requires two or three users to begin using the computer.

Personal++ Computer is a small application which disables individual computer

use. Running in the background, it deactivates the screen unless it can identify a

minimum of two users in front of the computer’s webcam.

14

1716

SHARED-SELFCOMMUNICATION

How might self-effacing and identity-merging communication technologies alter

the ways in which we communicate one-to-one online?

This prototype integrates Arturo Castro and Kyle McDonald’s OpenFrameworks

Face Substitution algorithms with Skype to create video communication that

substitutes your face with the other person’s in real time.

1918

PANOPTICAM

Much of contemporary social media is about sharing the unique perspective of the

individual with a collective audience. This life-streaming makes the individual’s

everyday, mundane experiences shared and accessible.

Panopticam plays out this trend to an extreme. The prototype continually shares a

360° view of the wearer’s surroundings to a custom version of Google’s Street View,

allowing for interactive, real-time browsing.

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MEDIATED MIRROR

If a mirror is the classic interface for experiencing your own presence, what would a

technologically-mediated mirror be like that doesn’t let you see your own face?

This is a prototype of such a mirror. A Microsoft Kinect camera tracks the

movement of users’ heads, and a Processing sketch turns the mirror that is

perpendicular to them, obscuring their reflection. The prototype works with

multiple users, allowing them to see other faces, but never their own.

23

CROWDSOURCED ALPHA PORTRAITS

This interactive piece plays out the Self-foregrounding dynamics of the social web

in a physical installation.

An over head camera tracks visitors as they walk through the exhibition space,

looking for groups and identifying the individual who is at the focus of that group.

Once identifi ed, a second camera captures their face and begins to draw a large

portrait on a sheet of paper hanging on the wall, behind a grand frame.

Once complete, the portrait only remains for a moment before the system

identifi es another individual and scrolls the previous portrait out of view to begin

the next drawing.

22

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paper

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1 | INTRODUCTION

Like other tools before it, the Internet reflects the ideological conditions it has

developed within. The strategies of the corporately owned social web 2.0 1, which

have come to dominate the contemporary Internet, promote a very particular

understanding of the Individual, one that heavily promotes the ideals of Western

Individualism and Neoliberal Consumerism.

This ideological Individualism is embedded deeply within these systems and

technologies, designed into their format and function through User-Centered

Design methodologies, rigid standardised presences, and adopted market-

practices applied to relational interactions that commodify the individual. These

are strategies, as described by de Certeau (1984), used by institutions and power

structures to “produce, tabulate, and impose” this ideological understanding of the

individual.2

I believe that Design can encourage and enable a kind of individuality beyond

possessive Western Individualism. My work explores tactical approaches that “use,

manipulate, and divert” the particular Individualism imposed on us strategically

in these networked social spaces. Using tactics that I will refer to as diffusion and

multiplexing, I endeavour to move towards a more collective understanding of the

social web. As networked life expands beyond the screen into objects and places,

I believe that it is crucial to explore tactical design that counteracts, disrupts, and

offers alternatives to this technologically-embedded individualism.

1 Web 2.0 is a term that has been in use since approximately 2000 to describe web sites

and technologies that go beyond the ‘static’ pages of the earlier web. It implies more user-

generated content and social relations, which enable interactions beyond passive viewing.

2 It is interesting to note how, in the history of the Web, a shift can be perceived from the

tactical to the strategic. The presence and communication of a minority of early-adopters in

weblogs, chat rooms and IRC networks—means of communicating and forming community that

were initially run and owned by the individuals using them (primarily hackers, technologists and

academics)—was predominantly tactical. What once was tactical is now strategic; this social and

collective use of the web, which has now become mainstream in Web 2.0, takes place almost

entirely within the standardised presences of corporately-owned social networks.

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2 | INDIVIDUALISM

Individualism is “a mode of life in which the individual pursues his own ends or

follows out his own ideas.” (Oxford English Dictionary) This ethical egoism (that

moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest) is a key element in the

Western capitalist cultural systems.

Modern philosophy, emerging during the Enlightenment, sought to distinguish the

individual from society, particularly in the work of key thinkers such as Hobbes and

Locke. The freedom to understand one’s own reality, determine one’s own future

and decide about one’s own beliefs, brought a liberation from existing religious,

class, and other social categories. Individualism was central to the emerging

dominant economic system of capitalism—a key reason why it has become so

fundamental.

Political scientist, C. B. Macpherson (1962) identified this as “possessive”

individualism, defined as “those deeply internalized habits of thinking and

feeling” whereby we view “everything around [us] primarily as actual or potential

commercial property.” (Coleman, 2012) Macpherson’s individual understands

themselves, their skills, and those of others as a commodity to be bought and sold

on the open market. At the core of possessive individualism lies an insatiable thirst

for selfish consumption, which is considered central to human nature.

This possessive individualism emerged in an aggressive form with the rise of

neoliberal economic policies, following the abandonment of Keynesian policies

in the 1970s and 80s (those which advocated more government intervention in

the markets). Neoliberal policies seek to increase the role of the private-sector

in society through opening markets, deregulating trade, and privatising public

service. Neoliberalism understands individual economic freedom as central;

reducing government interference in the economy paves the way for the individual

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As a cultural phenomenon, neoliberalism creates a tendency for the individual to

apply the values of the marketplace to all spheres of life, including the social and

cultural.

“In personal ethics, the general neoliberal vision is that every human being is

an entrepreneur managing their own life, and should act as such.” (Treanor,

2005)

In this everything-entrepreneurship, pursuing and expressing individuality is

encouraged, insofar as it can be expressed through purchasing power. I am my own

person, and I can do whatever I want; I express this through capitalising whenever

and however possible, thus providing myself with the liberty to purchase whatever

I want in life. In this way, an individualistic understanding of one’s identity, and the

importance of the financial conditions to obtain and consume the building blocks of

this desired identity, becomes central to sustaining the neoliberal economic system.

“Neoliberal ideology does not produce its subjects by interpolating them into

symbolically anchored identities (structured according to conventions of

gender, race, work, and national citizenship). Instead, it enjoins subjects to

develop our creative potential and cultivate our individuality. Communicative

capitalism’s circuits of entertainment and consumption supply the ever new

experiences and accessories we use to perform this self-fashioning — I must

be fit! I must be stylish! I must realize my dreams. I must because I can—

everyone wins. If I don’t, not only am I a loser but I am not a person at all. I

am not part of everyone.” (Dean, 2009, p 66)

It is this individualism that is not only encouraged, but I believe embedded, within

the social networking systems of the contemporary Internet.

to sustain themselves, and ultimately prosper, in the marketplace. Essentially, the

belief is that if each person is given the ‘freedom’ to take control of their lives and

prosper, they will do so.

“Neoliberalism… proposes that human well-being can best be advanced

by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an

institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free

markets, and free trade.” (Harvey, 2007, p 2)

At both economic and ideological levels, neoliberalism has profoundly impacted

capitalist Western culture. Beyond simply a set of economic policies, it is

particularly evident as a broader worldview in attitudes towards the individual

and society. Margaret Thatcher famously declared that there was, “no such

thing as society, only individual men and women”. (Harvey, p 23) Individualism,

private property and personal responsibility for oneself take precedence

over social solidarity. We see a subtle shift from the role of the individual as

citizen (contributing to and responsible for a society around them) to the role

of the individual as consumer (free to earn and buy the life that they desire).

Accompanying this, is the subtle logic that individual rights take precedence over

individual responsibilities.

This rise in individualism contrasts sharply with the reality of our increasing reliance

on the global community. Independent living, at least at a material level, is nearly

impossible in today’s world, and yet the facade of personal material independence

is perhaps more prevalent than ever before. In response to this curious contrast,

between the modern trend towards individualism and our increasing reliance on the

global community, there is a neoliberal conception of this global connectedness:

one which understands and encourages interconnection and interdependence in

respect to the market.

“In creas ing ly, neoliberalism af firms tech nol o gy’s fan ta sy of wholeness to tell us

who “we” are in a glob al sense. We are those con nect ed to each oth er through

ex change, the ex change of commodities as well as of con tri bu tions. On the

Internet, we are free to buy an y thing from an y where at any time.” (Dean,

2009, p 56)

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3 | THE STRATEGIES OF INDIVIDUALISM INHERENT IN THE SOCIAL WEB

“The design of software builds the ideology into those actions that are the

easiest to perform on the software designs that are becoming ubiquitous.”

(Lanier, 2010, p 47)

The contemporary Internet has become dominated by the presence of social

networks. These networks, also referred to as social media, exist as online services

or sites that facilitate social interrelations among individuals in networks of

varying scales. Predominantly, they feature discrete nodes which represent each

individual (e.g. a profile) accompanied by various services which join these nodes

as social connections, most often around the ‘sharing’ of text, links and other

media. They are predominantly web-based tools, but increasingly exist as mobile

applications as well. The social networking landscape is dominated by corporate

giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.

The presence of these social networks could be understood as an attempt to fill the

gap between “a seductive but alienating possessive individualism on the one hand

and the desire for a meaningful collective life on the other.” (Harvey, 2007, p 69)

Fundamentally however, these social networking services are individual-centred;

they place the individual user at the centre of their own bespoke reality. Why the

individual and not the collective? Surely the collective is of primary importance

in any understanding of the social. Should the social be limited to a world that

revolves around the self?

The faux social of these networks serves to shape the individual into a more ideal

candidate for serving and fuelling the market. At the same time, the network is

profiting from their presence. This explicit redefining of the social into that which

is consumed by the individual lies at the heart of the strategies of the social

networks.

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The free-market self who inhabits the social network, constructing and expressing

themselves there, is constantly offered, through advertising, the opportunity to

purchase a better self, upgrade their identity, and accessorise their lifestyle with

select, relevant consumer products:

“The consumer figures the pos si bil i ty of en joy ment prom ised by neoliberalism.

Con sump tion pro vides the ter rain with in which my iden ti ty, my lifestyle, can

be con structed, pur chased, and made over. Yet con sump tion is more than a

ter rain—the con sum er is com manded to en joy, com pelled by the im pos si ble

de mand to do more, be more, have more, change more.” (Dean, 2009, 67)

I consume, therefore I am.

But there is a further commodification of the individual being promoted in

these social spaces: these networks enable and encourage a form of possessive

individualism which sees the individual literally adopting marketing strategies

for themselves. The consumption and commodification of the individual that

Macpherson describes is evident in the kind of ‘self-expression’ that social

networks perpetuate. The social network self strives to be seen as concurrently

unique and conforming; they self-market themselves in a supply-and-demand

fashion. They see more value in themselves as they are increasingly consumed.

Within the social network, everything becomes a marketing tool for the self,

exemplifying the demands of neoliberalism for “flexible, self-starting subjects

willing to convert all of life into capital.” (Horning, 2012) The social network

strategically fosters an understanding of the individual rooted in consumption.

It redefines—and redesigns—the social around an individualistic economy which

understands the self as the ultimate commodity:

“In using social media, we become fatally aware of how we can sell ourselves

and thus intensify self-marketing practices. We put ourselves forward as a

brand in order to register in these commercially oriented, quantification-driven

systems.” (Horning, 2012)

Moreover, this understanding of the individual is cleverly designed to perpetuate

itself. In the attention economy of the social network, if you are not garnering

enough attention, then you need to invest more of yourself to earn the attention

you deserve. Literal financial investment is even possible, in the case of

Facebook’s sponsored posts which allow the user to pay to have their content more

prominently featured.

Strategies, as theorised by de Certeau, manipulate power relationships through

their creation of “a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base

from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets… (customers… [etc.])

can be managed.” (de Certeau, 1984, p 37) These new social spaces are literal

abstractions that schematise relationships, implementing strategic network

architectures in code that translate these organic structures to the strict, defined,

and imposed schemas of the web, which can then be leveraged, controlled, and

directed by those in power.

The strategies at play include commodification of the individual, User-Centred

Design, and creating a myth of freedom whilst enforcing standardised presences.

COMMODIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL

How is the value of the individual emphasised and interpreted through social

networking sites? The individual point of view, although it would seem to lie at

the centre of this new social space, is not a priority of the inherent ideology; it is

a means to an end. The true value of the individual lies not in their contribution,

but in their market value. Although the apparent purpose of these tools may be

expressed as social connection, empowering the individual through the ability to

communicate, these institutions are first answerable to their shareholders and

investors. The line connecting each node in the social network is the (financial)

bottom line.

“Since the companies that create social media platforms make money from

having as many users as possible visit them (they do so by serving ads, by

selling data about usage to other companies, by selling add-on services, and

so on), they have a direct interest in having users pour as much of their lives

into these platforms as possible.” (Manovich, 2009, p 325)

As Manovich describes, these networks are funded commercially, primarily through

advertising and selling collated user information. The individual is commodified,

literally, as their data is analysed and packaged for advertisers. Earlier in Web

history, bloggers began to use advertising to make money from their self-

generated content; in the social media model, the network makes money from

user-generated content.

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In fact, one can curate the community around oneself to be sheltered entirely

from anyone with a differing hobby, world-view, or perspective. Such curated

communities can reinforce particular expressions of self, forming groups that

embody the demographic divisions that define them. Varnelis describes such

curated communities as “telecocoons”:

“Given the vast number of possible clusters one can associate with, it becomes

easy to find a comfortable niche with people just like oneself, among other

individuals whose views merely reinforce one’s own. If the Internet is hardly

responsible for this condition, it still can exacerbate it, giving us the illusion

that we are connecting with others.” (Varnelis, 2008, p157)

Social networking provides an experience of the collective, of the social, that gives

the individual ultimate curatorial control. This technological narcissism might be

better described as solipsistic rather than social.

“Narcissism is a symptomatic trait of self-identity in the phase of modernity.

Consumer capitalism perpetuates the flawed project of self-love which

encourages individualism and discourages ‘giving to others’.” (Giddens, 1991,

p 173)

THE FREEDOM MYTH OF STANDARDISED PRESENCES

“Web 2.0 designs actively demand that people define themselves downward.”

(Lanier 2010)

The results of User-Centred Design can mask the conforming nature of social

networks. The user is given the illusion of being in control, being at the centre,

choosing how they use the service; this all serves to mask the ways in which these

tools are using us, the user.

There is a false freedom in these networks, that doesn’t allow a free individuality,

but uses the strategy of consumeristic individualism to enforce conformity. Lanier

(2010) describes social networks, such as Facebook, as “standardized presences.”

Individuals have control over how they present themselves, but only to the extent

that the structures of the system itself allows. The social network’s design to

I am consumed, therefore I am.

A CRITIQUE OF USER-CENTRED DESIGN

The individuals of the web, no matter what the context, are predominantly referred

to as ‘users’: implying they are putting the web to use. In these social networks,

the term users persists, pointing towards this expectation for the functional and

productive. Users are present to produce and consume. The further, and more

fundamental, reason behind the use of the term user, and not audience as in old

media, is the strategic dominance of individualism.

User-Centred Design, the design approach behind many of these services, places

the needs and desires of end-users at the centre of the design process. Initially

popularised by Donald Norman, this design approach has become central to much

contemporary design thinking, particularly interaction design for technology

and the web. User-Centred Design centers the design around the user, creating a

bespoke world that positions them at its core.1 Here we can see this ideological

individualism designed into the very fabric of the systems, technologies and

interfaces of social networking.

By centring me in my own customised reality, these user-centred services

encourage me to select the friend or network that will give the response desired

at any given moment. Again, we see the entrepreneurial neoliberal approach:

strategic investments in the relational ‘market’ to get the best possible returns.

Furthermore, it implies that the user is always right, and, as Woods suggests,

“assumes that what individual consumers want will benefit the whole system”

(2012).

1 Woods (2012) describes Joseph Weizenbaum’s computer program, ELIZA, which conversed

with patients to diagnose medical conditions. It did so via screen-based questions in everyday

language that were so convincing participants assumed they were talking to a human being.

“Weizenbaum’s experiment is that educated people become very susceptible to suggestion, once

they are placed at the centre of their emotional universe.” Could perhaps this centring of the

user in the interactions of the social network be interpreted as a strategy to make them more

susceptible to suggestions, coercion, and control?

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of conformity. The social becomes not a medium for individual expression, but an

engine for assimilation; an ironic assimilation which is fuelled by emphasising the

individual. This entire process has not been forced upon us; we have consented

entirely throughout.

“For Deleuze, the data gathered on us through the new technologies did not

necessarily manifest our irreducible uniqueness. Rather, the very way that the

data can be gathered about us and then used for and against us marks us as

dividuals… For Deleuze, such technologies indicate that we as discrete selves

are not in-divisible entities; on the contrary, we can be divided and subdivided

endlessly.” (Williams, 2005)

In this way, through being provided with tools designed to enable expressions of

our individual uniqueness, we are conformed: stripped of individuality and agency.

I am unique and in control, therefore I am… not.

create a fixed format for self-expression reduces people to abstractions. In a literal

sense, people become objects; a computer term referring to a particular instance of

data in a common format, but referenced by a unique identifier. In these networks,

we are represented by such code objects. On this machine level, the ideologically-

controlled individualism is inherent in the formats, data structures and system

architectures of these networks.

Facebook’s multiple—choice identities, demographic database fields and ubiquitous

‘Status Update’ textboxes can be interpreted as equivalent to Foucault’s enclosures

that mould and—even more so—Deleuze’s controls that modulate people into data

‘dividuals’.

“The numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to

information, or reject it. We no longer find ourselves dealing with the mass/

individual pair. Individuals have become ‘dividuals,’ and masses, samples,

data, markets, or ‘banks…’ The disciplinary man was a discontinuous producer

of energy, but the man of control is undulatory, in orbit, in a continuous

network.” (Deleuze, 1992, p 5)

Gal lo way (2004), discussing Deleuze’s societies of control, explicitly describes

computer protocols as “mechanisms of contemporary control” in so far as

they “encode appropriate behaviour in advance” (Dean, 2009, p 185). These

computational “codes, techniques, and arrangements… distribute and manage”

the individual within the social network.

Particularly with the ideological focus I previously outlined, we can understand the

system from a Deleuzian perspective as transforming us into dividuals by breaking

us down to our base component data elements, before recompiling us into ‘useful’

demographic groups for economic purposes.

“The ‘dividual’ —a physically embodied human subject that is endlessly divisible

and reducible to data representations via the modern technologies of control,

like computer-based systems.” (Williams, 2005)

The particular ideological individualism that is promoted and encouraged, enables

this dissolution of the self to constituent elements, to be reformed not as

individuals but as demographics, ones in which we are powerless. In this way,

the ideological individualism of these networks has a normalising effect. The

standardised presences of social networks transform individuality into a mode

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4 | TACTICS: BEYOND AN INDIVIDUALISTIC SOCIAL WEB

“In a world where we post the majority of our personal data online, and states and

corporations wield invasive tools to collect and market the rest, there is something

profoundly hopeful in… effacement of the self… [It] enables participants to

practice a kind of individuality beyond… possessive individualism.” (Coleman, 2012)

In the context of the dominant individualistic ideology of the social web, I am

primarily interested in exploring tactics for the “effacement of the self”, designing

technologically-mediated social experiences and spaces that offer alternatives to

these self-centric interactions. My work seeks to disrupt the user from their role

as such, defamiliarising the individualism of User-Centered Design and offering

alternatives for contemporary connected social spaces. In response to the faux

social of such social networks, how might other technological expressions or

experiences of the collective provide an alternative to the possessive individualism

of neoliberalism?

De Certeau (1984, p 37) defines “tactics” as ways to artfully “use, manipulate,

and divert” the cultural products and spaces imposed by an external power. He

describes tactics that trace “indeterminate trajectories that are apparently

meaningless, since they do not cohere with the constructed, written, and

prefabricated space through which they move.” (1984, p35) The city, which cannot

be tactically reshaped through physical reorganisation, can be adapted to one’s

needs by choosing how to move through it. In contrast, network architecture and

the format of web-connected client devices allows for a certain amount of adapting

and restructuring of its constituent elements. In the context of the web, these

social spaces can be broken down into multiple elements to be rebuilt and reshaped,

through both endorsed methods—APIs (application programming interfaces),

metadata, web feeds and similar protocols—and non-endorsed approaches—hacks,

browser overrides, and html scraping.

What are the collective tactics that might be deployed within these individual-

focussed strategies? I will outline two tactical approaches, which can be understood

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MULTIPLEXING THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE COLLECTIVE

Multiplexing is a technical term used in telecommunications and computer

networks that “enable[s] (a line) to carry several signals simultaneously” (Oxford

English Dictionary) by combining multiple signals into one over a shared medium. I

see multiplexing as a useful metaphor for collective experience that transcends the

individual. Collective rituals have a rich history spanning many cultures—musical

gatherings, protest crowds, religious congregations, collective storytelling—and

can provide alternative models for this multiplexing of the self in the social. Such

rituals offer communal, egalitarian, and immersive models for designing collective

experiences.

I see an opportunity for an experience of the networked individual that

is completely engulfed within the collective. In my work, I seek to create

technologically-mediated social spaces that interface with the collective;

multiplexing the individual in collective experiences and entities which see the

collective node take precedence over the individual.

A pertinent example lies in the nomadic resistant model of hacker culture, which

Galloway (2004) describes. These tactical collective entities, such as Anonymous

exist inside the strategic, standardised presences of the web’s protocols, social

networks and communication channels. Individuals coalesce around a specific

action or problem under the Anonymous banner creating a resistance that

originates from many different places. Once complete, the collective dissolves.

Numerous designers and artists have also engaged with ways of representing

and interacting with the Internet in a more collectivising way. Listening Post by

Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, is one such example. It is an installation that pulls

text fragments containing the phrase “I am…” from thousands of chat rooms in

real time. These extracts are then displayed on a suspended grid of over 200 small

liquid-crystal displays, while at the same time being read by a computer-generated

voice. It offers an interesting contrast between the literal individualism of these “I

am” conversational extracts and the collective experience of engaging with them

all simultaneously. Its format offers both a dissolution of the text from its author

and original context, along with multiplexing it into a coherent collective whole.

as alternative models for design, that leverage the structure and protocols of these

social spaces to subvert, adapt and offer alternative ways to inhabit them. They

are built on two conceptions of the Self: diffusion and multiplexing. In interactions

that obscure the Individual, either amidst their own data fragments, or amidst the

collective, there lies the potential to encourage and enable an alternative approach.

DIFFUSION: EMBRACING THE FRAGMENTED DIVIDUAL

Diffusion sees the fragmented individual dispersed across the network:

embracing the Deleuzian, subdivided dividual as a means to render the individual

“unmappable.” Staying within the defined boundaries of the social network, this

approach designs tools and techniques that aim to hide or obscure the individual, or

liberate the user from market-oriented consumerism. By welcoming this dissolution

of the individual into multiple data elements, we subvert the strategic data-

gathering systems that mark us as dividuals.

Ben Grosser’s Demetricator1 explicitly seeks to remove one important element

in the market ideology of Facebook through removing the metrics constantly

displayed to the user that “measure and present our social value and activity,

enumerating friends, likes, comments, and more.” It is a web browser add-on that

hides these metrics: ‘36 people like this’ becomes ‘people like this’ and ‘having 105

friends’ becomes simply ‘having friends.’

“Demetricator invites Facebook’s users to try the system without the numbers,

to see how their experience is changed by their absence. With this work I aim

to disrupt the prescribed sociality these metrics produce, enabling a network

society that isn’t dependent on quantification.” (Grosser, 2012)

I developed a similar project shortly before discovering Grosser’s work which

also uses javascript within the browser to affect Facebook’s interface. Facebook

Anonify2 aims to disassociate the post and data fragments from the Individuals

who posted them by removing all profile photographs and replacing all user’s name

with their numeric user id.

1 http://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/

2 http://blog.johndryan.me/post/34657898214/facebook-anonify

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In trying to achieve a dissolution into a group that is not negative, I am primarily

interested in the experience of the self in this collective setting. How can you

interface as an individual through an interaction with the collective in which

you lose yourself? Removing the individualistic self, what is it like to experience

the shared or collective self? What freedom or escape might be possible from

the agendas I’ve previously outlined? I’m interested in what the experience of

connectedness might feel like, mediated through these technological interfaces.

Freud uses the term “oceanic feeling” in an attempt to define the psychological

feeling of religion. A person experiences this emotion when they have a sense

of being continuous with the rest of the universe. He describes it as “a feeling of

an indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole.” (1930) He

theorises that this experience of being connected beyond the self, is “a vestige

of infantile consciousness prior to the time when the infant begins to distinguish

himself from his human and non-human environment” (Roberts); a time before

the self has formed for the infant. Might it be possible to experience something

similar when interacting in a subversive, augmented reality that inhibits you from

perceiving yourself—perhaps enabling moments of bypassing the limits of the self?

In designing tactical interactions that enable diffusion or multiplexing of the

individual, I am interested in creating such experiences that might enable

individuals to feel this “oceanic” connectedness with the collective.

“At a stroke Listening Post fulfils the promise of most Internet-based art,

affecting a simultaneous collapse and expansion of time and space with

implications ranging from notions of private and public space to individual

thought and its role in group dynamics.” (Eleey, 2003)

What Listening Post doesn’t offer is any interaction that enables the viewer

themselves to contribute to or participate in the collective. PRIZM1 was a project I

undertook to create a multiplexed self in a way that was built directly on user input.

PRIZM’s interface takes a selection of personal information through a custom

interface which includes a magnetic card swipe (for Driver’s License and other

card information), a camera with facial recognition, a custom fingerprint scanner

(webcam and threshold image-processing) and a keyboard for text data entry. Over

the course of the project’s exhibition, data was collected from visitors. A second

screen alongside the input interface displayed continually generated collective

identities from the submitted data.

The project fell short in the ‘language’ of identity systems that I chose to use. The

ID cards, fingerprints and other identity systems in this project, are obviously more

associated with strategic systems of power and control rather than a more tactical

experience of collective identity. Moving forward, my current work endeavours to

link the experience of the collective in Listening Post with the more interactive

participation for the user that I was aiming for in PRIZM.

THE EXPERIENCE OF LOSING ONESELF IN THE CROWD

One might ask, with this sacrificing of capability to perceive or represent oneself

directly, why would anyone want to participate in such a system? Would an

individual limit themselves to experience the collective? I think there is evidence in

current systems for this limiting of self to partake in something. On Facebook, for

example, you actively choose to sacrifice particular liberties (i.e. privacy, control)

to be part of a larger collective experience. The user also, as previously discussed,

limits how they are represented to the format and structures of Facebook.

1 http://blog.johndryan.me/post/38054215831/prizm

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5 | CONCLUSION

I believe that designing tactical responses to the strategic individualism of the

contemporary web is of particular importance as the dominant networks expand

beyond the screen into the objects surrounding us and the spaces we inhabit.

“Objects and places are the next targets for aggregation into the digital

network. As networks increasingly pervade the nooks and crannies of physical

space through portable objects and place-based infrastructure, we now

have opportunities for an always-on sense of networked connectivity, and a

layering of presence in various physical and online places.” (Ito, 2008, p 12)

As the Internet moves beyond Web 2.0, towards the Internet of Things—which sees

objects and places embedded with networked computing technology—there lies

the opportunity to either more deeply embed this technological individualism1, or

to offer alternatives. As the social moves into shared objects and spaces, there is

exciting potential in interactions that are not limited to my device and your device,

my screen and your screen; the possibility of an alternative social of truly collective,

collaborative networked objects and spaces.

1 The current trends amongst the initial wave of such Internet of Things devices have indeed

inherited this individualism. Wearable computing in particular, with products such as Google

Glass, the Nike Fuel Band, and Biostamps (flexible circuitry stuck to the skin like temporary

tattoos), take the User-Centred consumer-electronic device a step further. Providing self-

tracking and self-quantification, the neoliberal entrepreneur’s dream of realtime market-

analysis is now available, not just for their social lives, but now also for their body’s own inputs,

outputs and performance.

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ANNOTATEDBIBLIOGRAPHY

COLEMAN, G. (2012) OUR WEIRDNESS IS FREE. MAY, 9.Coleman is an anthropologist who researches hackers and digital activism. This

paper explores the history, logic and ethos behind Anonymous, the hacktivist

group. Her insight and theories about the group have been most useful in exploring

an example of a networked collective, consisting of multiple individuals, that

is decentralised, leaderless and has anonymous ‘membership’. In particular she

identities Anonymous’s agenda to counter the possessive capitalist individualism

predominant on the web.

DE CERTEAU, M. (1984) THE PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE. BERKELEY: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.De Certeau’s important text examines how mass culture is individualised as we

make it our own. Of particular relevance to this paper is his distinction between

what he identifies as strategies and tactics. He defines strategies as the methods

and structures used by institutions to impose power, whereas tactics are the ways

in which individuals negotiate these structures, adapting them and making them

“habitable.” I understand this as particularly applicable when considering the strictly

defined and controlled architecture of social networks, from the individualising

schemas to the interface itself, and the ways in which we can—and do—negotiate

these to make them our own.

5352

similar might be experienced when interacting in a subversive, augmented reality

that inhibits you from perceiving yourself—perhaps enabling moments of bypassing

the limits of the self?

GALLOWAY, A. (2004) PROTOCOL: HOW CONTROL EXISTS AFTER DECENTRALIZATION. CAMBRIDGE, MA: THE MIT PRESS.Although Galloway focusses on the technical description of the architecture

present in the network, he uses this as the basis to discuss its political and

ideological ramifications. He argues that control, and not freedom, lies at the

heart of the Internet’s development and structure—particularly as embodies in

the protocols that make the network possible. He goes on to describe the various

cultures and communities that have developed around, and in response to, the

nature of these protocols.

GROSSER, B. (2012) DEMETRICATOR. [ONLINE] AVAILABLE AT: HTTP://BENGROSSER.COM/PROJECTS/FACEBOOK-DEMETRICATOR/ [ACCESSED: 7 JAN 2013].

Ben Grosser’s Demetricator explicitly seeks to remove one important element

in the market ideology of Facebook through removing the metrics constantly

displayed to the user that “measure and present our social value and activity,

enumerating friends, likes, comments, and more.” It is a web browser add-on that

hides these metrics: ‘36 people like this’ becomes ‘people like this’ and ‘having 105

friends’ becomes simply ‘having friends.’

“Demetricator invites Facebook’s users to try the system without the numbers,

to see how their experience is changed by their absence. With this work I aim to

disrupt the prescribed sociality these metrics produce, enabling a network society

that isn’t dependent on quantification.” (Grosser, 2012)

DEAN, J. (2009) DEMOCRACY AND OTHER NEOLIBERAL FANTASIES: COMMUNICATIVE CAPITALISM AND LEFT POLITICS. DURHAM, NC: DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS BOOKS.Dean assesses a number of ideologies and trends in contemporary political

culture, but the chapters on technology and its relationship with neoliberalism

were particularly applicable to my research. She coins the phrase “communicative

capitalism” to describe what she sees as a mix of consumerism and the privileging

of the individual over the collective that has become predominant in social media

and other similar spheres.

DELEUZE, G. (1992) POSTSCRIPT ON THE SOCIETIES OF CONTROL. OCTOBER, 59 P.3-7.Deleuze describes a transition from Foucault’s “disciplinary societies” to what he

calls “societies of control.” In discussing the technologies of continuous control,

he describes the concept of the “dividual”—the human individual now reduced and

divided endlessly into data representations by computer-based systems. Rather

than individual, the constituent data of the deconstructed dividual is what is of

value in this contemporary capitalism. Deleuze’s dividual is exemplified in the data-

mining agendas of social networks.

FREUD, S. (1930) CIVILISATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS. LONDON.Freud examines the tensions between the individual and society, examining the

contrasting forces of freedom and conformity. Early on, he uses the term “oceanic

feeling” in an attempt to define the psychological feeling of religion. A person

experiences this emotion when they have a sense of being continuous with the

rest of the universe. He describes it as “a feeling of an indissoluble bond, of being

one with the external world as a whole.” (1930) He theorises that this experience

of being connected beyond the self, is “a vestige of infantile consciousness prior to

the time when the infant begins to distinguish himself from his human and non-

human environment” (Roberts); a time before the self has formed for the infant. In

terms of the experience design of my work, I use this concept to ask how something

5554

ITO, M. (2008) INTRODUCTION. IN: VARNELIS, K. EDS. (2008) NETWORKED PUBLICS. 1ST ED. CAMBRIDGE, MA: THE MIT PRESS, P.1-14.See Varnelis, K. below.

LANIER, J. (2011) YOU ARE NOT A GADGET: A MANIFESTO. NEW YORK: VINTAGE.Lanier, a computer scientist and pioneer of early digital media, critiques the role

of digital design and its influence on society, particularly as embodied in the ideals

of Web 2.0. He offers a counter-argument to my central thesis, suggesting that in

social media we see an elevation of the “wisdom of the crowd,” collectivism and

the hive mind, over the “importance and uniqueness of the individual voice.”

MACPHERSON, C.B. (1962) THE POLITICAL THEORY OF POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM. OXFORD: CLARENDON PRESS.Macpherson’s possessive individualism is defined as “those deeply internalized

habits of thinking and feeling” whereby we view “everything around [us]

primarily as actual or potential commercial property.” He examines how this

kind of individualism functions in the work of philosophers including Hobbes

and Locke, and as a result pervades in the influence of liberalism from that point

on. Macpherson’s individual understands themselves, their skills, and those of

others as a commodity to be bought and sold on the open market. At the core of

possessive individualism lies an insatiable thirst for selfish consumption, which is

considered central to human nature.

HANSEN, M. AND RUBIN, B. (2001) LISTENING POST.I use this artwork as an example of work that seeks to represent and interact

with the Internet in a more collectivising way. It is an installation that pulls text

fragments mentioning the phrase “I am…” from thousands of chat rooms in real

time. These extracts are then displayed on a suspended grid of over 200 small

liquid-crystal displays, while at the same time being read by a computer-generated

voice. It offers an interesting contrast between the literal individualism of these “I

am” conversational extracts and the collective experience of engaging with them

all simultaneously. Its format offers both a dissolution of the text from its author

and original context, along with multiplexing it into a coherent collective whole.

HARVEY, D. (2005) A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEOLIBERALISM. OXFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.Harvey’s book served as a historical and ideological overview of neoliberalism, “the

doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide

for all human action.” His writing provided historical context and identified key

concepts which I have applied to the social media realm.

HORNING, R. (2012) HI HATERS!. THE NEW INQUIRY, AVAILABLE AT: HTTP://THENEWINQUIRY.COM/ESSAYS/HI-HATERS [ACCESSED: 30 NOV 2012].Horning’s opinion piece covers the social-media-fuelled trends of micro fame, self-

marketing, and self-surveillance. He draws links between them and neoliberalism,

which served as starting points for some of my writing on the commodification of

the individual.

5756

VARNELIS, K. (2008) CONCLUSION: THE MEANING OF NETWORK CULTURE. IN: VARNELIS, K. EDS. (2008) NETWORKED PUBLICS. 1ST ED. CAMBRIDGE, MA: THE MIT PRESS, P.145-163.Reflecting on the influence of the network and information technology, Varnelis

edits in this book a series of essays on what he calls “network culture.” In this

closing essay, he examines evidence for, and the affect of, network culture

in various areas of contemporary life. In examining the subject of networked

culture, he critiques a naive understanding of a nodal distributed model. Instead

he offers his conception of “telecocoons,” which is particularly useful: “Instead

of whole individuals, we are constituted in multiple micro-publics, inhabitants of

simultaneously overlapping telecocoons, sharing telepresence with intimates in

whom we are in near-constant touch, members of… clustered demographic units.”

(Varnelis)

WILLIAMS, R. (2005) POLITICS AND SELF IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL RE(PRO)DUCIBILITY. FAST CAPITALISM, 1 (1), AVAILABLE AT: HTTP://WWW.UTA.EDU/HUMA/AGGER/FASTCAPITALISM/1_1/WILLIAMS.HTML [ACCESSED: 30 NOV. 2012].Williams discusses the influence of “globalizing capitalism and liberal-democratic

policies” on Western concepts of the self. He problematises the individuality of

the self, asking “how distinctly and utterly “individual” is the self?” Consumer

corporations and liberal-democratic governments hail the Individual as their

rallying cry, but Williams questions “how autonomous, sacrosanct, and centered is

the individual when autonomy is defined as choosing from pre-selected political or

consumer choices” as defined by these same groups. In examining the relationship

between technology and society, he heavily references and builds on Deleuze’s

concept of the “dividual” along with the Frankfurt School’s applications of cultural

Marxist theory.

MANOVICH, L. (2009) THE PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY (MEDIA) LIFE: FROM MASS CONSUMPTION TO MASS CULTURAL PRODUCTION?. CRITICAL INQUIRY, 35 (2), P.319-331.Discussing “the explosion of user-created media content on the web” that he

understands as the move “from media to social media,” Manovich examines

user-generated content by applying de Certeau’s distinction “between strategies

used by institutions and power structures and tactics used by modern subjects

in their everyday lives.” He discusses the changes that have taken places since de

Certeau published his work, suggesting that “strategies and tactics are now often

closely linked in an interactive relationship, and often their features are reversed.”

Because the strategies of social media are increasingly flexible (e.g. allowing

greater user customisation), Manovich interprets this as appearing more like

tactics. I disagree, interpreting this as a strategy for encouraging greater subjection

to control.

TREANOR, P. (2005) NEOLIBERALISM: ORIGINS, THEORY, DEFINITION. [ONLINE] AVAILABLE AT: HTTP://WEB.INTER.NL.NET/USERS/PAUL.TREANOR/NEOLIBERALISM.HTML [ACCESSED: 1 JAN 2013].Treanor offers a broad definition and overview of neoliberalism, examining its

origins in liberalism from the late 18th century, its application to the market in

free trade, and neoliberalism’s desire to expand beyond the market in every action,

becoming more than an economic structure—closer to a philosophy.

5958

WOODS, J. (2012) WHY USER-CENTERED DESIGN IS NOT ENOUGH. [ONLINE] AVAILABLE AT: HTTP://WWW.CORE77.COM/BLOG/ARTICLES/WHY_USER-CENTERED_DESIGN_IS_NOT_ENOUGH_BY_JOHN_WOOD_23465.ASP [ACCESSED: 2 JAN 2013].Woods’ critique of User-Centered Design questions how useful humanism and

person-centred consumerism is as underlying philosophies for design. He suggests

that they have lead us towards a design that is narcissistic and solipsistic. He

suggests the adoption of richer, multi-approach models for design that might allow

us to “innovate at a more strategic, self-reflexive level.”