zac travis, new missing ’standards’ of mass! streaming additions, 2020
zac travis
new missing ’standards’ of mass! streaming additions is a project developed through exploring automation in technology, specifically, through the use of machine learning and recurrent neural networks. These algorithmic models feed on large amounts of data as a source to continuously learn from and, in return, predict and produce its own data. Whether it’s personalization in applications such as Spotify, Netflix, and Google, or the information, articles, and images we consume through social media; these machine learning systems are hidden complex structures that confirm and influence much of our daily tasks, thoughts, and decisions.
new missing ’standards’… is a video installation consisting of text and commercial display signs. In thinking about a window display as a screen for consuming information and products, I use a large data-set of text and marketing language commonly found in internet clickbait and journalism headlines (3.08 million headlines, written by 21000 authors, from 2010-2015). The data set is then given to an algorithm, which produces its interpretation of a headline. The results are a combination of fragmented words and sentences that make up the mass amounts of information we consciously or might subconsciously consume through our devices at any given time.
new missing ‘standards’… functions as a critique of the loss of human agency through the use of autonomous technology while also referring to ideas of content farm creation. As machine learning or predictive models have become more deeply integrated into the technology we use on a day-to-day basis, this project mimics information shared through and created by those systems and questions the effects this language might have on society.