Data Shadow: Remixing our Public and Private Selves in the Age of New Media

Stephen Spiridakis, MFA ’05

thesis abstract

The goal of Data Shadow: Remixing our Public and Private Selves in the Age of New Media is to design work that explicitly communicates the negative effects new technology has on our privacy, and further, on our public and private identities.

New media technology has taken away our ability to control our private information, and has also facilitated the misuse of that information. Making private information public threatens anonymity, increases the likelihood of stolen identity, and has the potential for homogenization of culture. As we become more aware of our data shadow (i.e. the abundance of private information surrounding us), we are likely to change how we behave in public, blurring the lines between our public and private identities. Awareness of our data shadow is likely to make us guarded in how we behave in public, and subsequently, resentful for the erosion of our privacy at the hand of new media technology.

The methodology I employ in Data Shadow: Remixing our Public and Private Selves in the Age of New Media uses technology in various social experiments in a reflexive manner to illustrate the loss of privacy and blurring of our public and private identities in the age of new media. Experiments were conducted in film, installation, and computer interactive projects.

Download “Data Shadow: Remixing our Public and Private Selves in the Age of New Media” (PDF, 1 MB).