The »Gestalt« of digital identity
ABSTRACT
The bachelor thesis ~IDENTITÄT – The »Gestalt« of digital identity of Jonas Loh & Steffen Fiedler evaluates how digital identity is generated to determine parameters on which a comparable analyses of the digital identity is possible.
More than one hundred thousand personal raw data sets were crawled from the web to fill this parameters with subject matters. Based on the thesis that the digital identity is measurable and comparable these data sets were visualized using custom computational tools.
These studies were designed to understand the data and determine its characteristics regarding the construction of digital identity.
After the analysis phase the data was visually abstracted and interpreted to give the disembodied digital identity a unique and characteristic »Gestalt« in form of a generated sculpture.
INTRODUCTION
Today almost everybody has at least one digital representation on one of the numerous social communities, like Flickr, Facebook and MySpace. We create these profiles to express ourselves, find friendship, connection and gain reputation. The profile data is constantly altered, retouched and updated to create a comprehensive image which draws attention, the currency of the web.
»Success is solely defined by the number of followers on twitter«
– Sascha Lobo
Our impression of the digital identity depends on how one combines the different profiles of a person. Depending on whether one compound these identity fragments or stacks it changes the overall
impression. When we
think of a digital representation of a person,
the image is always disembodied.
∑ai = a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 …
– The digital identity stack a is the sum of all identity fragments ai
We don’t imagine how she or he looks like,but think of specific personal data (images, videos, texts) which we associate with that
person instead.
Focusing on specific data for comparison, the digital identities of eight specific people were recorded and observed through a custom webcrawler. Their consumerist (amazon), communication behavior (twitter), interests (delicious) and listening habits (last.fm) were saved in a custom database. Furthermore this data was analysed in detail to determine four parameters that generate the form of the sculpture.
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1.The interests of a person
were analysed to uncover the connection between different interests: represented by tags from delicious and twitter. Building couples, triples and quads out of the top tags which were used in the same context allowed us to calculate how often they were used to describe the same source. This specification captures the person's interests as an individual parameter, given the fact that no two people would have exactly the same sets of tags.
generative(24) art 0.1667f ♥♥♥
– A tag couple at its specific force
the image is always disembodied.
∑ai = a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 …
– The digital identity stack a is the sum of all identity fragments ai
We don’t imagine how she or he looks like,but think of specific personal data (images, videos, texts) which we associate with that
person instead.
APPROACH
Focusing on specific data for comparison, the digital identities of eight specific people were recorded and observed through a custom webcrawler. Their consumerist (amazon), communication behavior (twitter), interests (delicious) and listening habits (last.fm) were saved in a custom database. Furthermore this data was analysed in detail to determine four parameters that generate the form of the sculpture.
1.The interests of a person
were analysed to uncover the connection between different interests: represented by tags from delicious and twitter. Building couples, triples and quads out of the top tags which were used in the same context allowed us to calculate how often they were used to describe the same source. This specification captures the person's interests as an individual parameter, given the fact that no two people would have exactly the same sets of tags.
generative(24) art 0.1667f ♥♥♥
– A tag couple at its specific force
2. The communication behavior was determined calculating the ratio between dialogues and monologues made on twitter.
3. The activity of a person was defined by how often the personal data in one of the specific social communities was updated over time.
4. The age of the digital existence. Out of these parameters a particle system was developed as an underlying structure.
To find an abstract form which expresses an analogue snapshot of a complex digital identity, instead of creating a readable data sculpture of someone's digital life, three consecutive studies had been designed.
The first was based on a planar mesh covered with diverse cones forming a landscape. The range of variation of this metaphor did
not reflect the complexity of a digital identity and the eight different test persons looked very similar.
3. The activity of a person was defined by how often the personal data in one of the specific social communities was updated over time.
4. The age of the digital existence. Out of these parameters a particle system was developed as an underlying structure.
PROCESS
To find an abstract form which expresses an analogue snapshot of a complex digital identity, instead of creating a readable data sculpture of someone's digital life, three consecutive studies had been designed.
~SCAPE
The first was based on a planar mesh covered with diverse cones forming a landscape. The range of variation of this metaphor did
not reflect the complexity of a digital identity and the eight different test persons looked very similar.
~CUBES
Concentrating on the particle itself the second approach lead to an accumulation of polyhedrons spread in three dimensional space. Through the method of marching cubes the transformation of a
point cloud into a continuous face was possible.
~FRAGMENT
In the next step the connections between the interest couples of a digital identity were shaped. The result was a three dimensional structure. This draft was successful in terms of the individuality and comparability of every single digital identity but was limited in its expressiveness.
These three intermediate results were based on clusters of geometric objects describing a space. Each one was limited by its statement. Either based on metaphors, or an accurate visualisation of previously collected data.
~GESTALT
The goal of the project was not to create a readable data sculpture of someone’s digital life, but to express how an analogue snapshot of complex digital identities can be presented. Based on four defined criteria all sculptures had to be comparable in their form, size and expression. After generating those sculptures based upon the particles only, we added time as an underlying factor. The particle system, which represents a persons interests, spreads in space until it is balanced. The speed of this expansion, the thickness of the created hull and the starting point of the drawing process is connected to the factors age, activity and communication behavior.
This system leads to an embodiment for the final ~Gestalt of digital identity. A still life of an ongoing process about redefining and decorating. This dynamic process of digital »day life« is captured in our personal interpretation of the digital identity as an amorphous sculpture.