Null area try someplace forgotten in-between the hidden limits of computer code.

The distinction between zero (the worth of total nothing) and null (the absence of price itself) try a subdued principle for individuals. For computer systems, this distinction is very crucial, yet filled with much more problems and peril—leading to a whole category of computer software pests.

Due to this phenomena, more large sources of geotagged pictures incorporate a cluster of “lost” individual facts at latitude-longitude coordinates 0.0°, 0.0° – discoverable if plotted on a chart a few hundred of miles off-shore in Gulf of Guinea. Unbeknownst on users of their programs, the routine and rare event with this insect may transfer their particular uploads here. Engineers implementing GIS techniques alert to this phenomena has affectionately called this venue “Null Area.”

For many years I was enamored making use of thought among these destroyed photos, of people’s unknowing and accidental travels binding all of them together to this unreal yet real space, plus producing apparent the concealed relationships.

What kind of place is Null isle?

Who has went to indeed there, and just what activities have (unknowingly) bound them together?

Postcards From Null isle is actually independent and unmonitored program that continuously trawls Flickr and Instagram, looking for any new photos which were uploaded from Null isle. Every time they are located, a physical postcard is actually printed and mailed for me, in order for we periodically obtain mementos from people’s not known and undiscovered trips to this mythical secure.

For starters 12 months, these postcards came, and slowly began to determine a story.

Work with improvements, presently desire installation convention talks.

Unindexed 2015

a test into the characteristics of ephemerality and determination online.

Unindexed ended up being web site that continually searched Bing for itself over and over. When they found by itself in the search results it would irrevocably and securely erase alone, deciding to make the exact instant of algorithmic development the catalyst of destruction.

Site visitors are motivated to upload contributions on the site (which will be also destroyed after web site was detected). These people were subsequently welcomed to generally share the site with other people, considering the results their particular way of sharing will have on hastening the ultimate breakthrough with the URL by yahoo look spiders.

a tension was developed involving the desire to show and the aspire to keep it to oneself, additionally the web site spreading on a tiny scale via postal mail, word-of-mouth, etc.

The site ended up being uncovered by Google after 22 days on Tue Feb 24 2015 21:01:14 GMT+0000 (UTC) and therefore instantaneously self-destructed milliseconds later on. Prior to the automatic removal it obtained numerous travelers and dozens of contributions. No backups comprise kept.

Posthumously showcased in VICE, Boing Boing, PC globe, & “The New visual and Art: Constellations associated with Postdigital” (Contreras-Koterbay/Mirocha, 2016).

Swipe Remaining 2014

I put drone hit “kill choice” images to the popular Tinder smartphone online dating software, pushing customers to choose yes or no in the artificial fortune of an interest.

After researching the procedure via which drone attack eliminate choices are built, I was interested in examining the part of desktop mediated UI in decrease in intricate judgements to quick binary choices. Tinder had been an ideal program juxtaposing this, because it’s achievement as a dating software is essentially according to it’s capacity to make use of screen to change an inherently intricate decision (finding a potential romantic partner) into a simplistic video game that feels as though it offers no effects.

As an additional benefit, the Tinder UI necessary users generate a yes-or-no choice before they may proceed, pushing these to participate in my personal situationist experiment without having the ability to opt-out.

Emoji Dolls 2014

Emojidoll was a robot that algorithmically assembles a humanoid find out of emoji glyphs for almost any Twitter user which requests one.

Each doll is special and tied to the requesting user’s Twitter account, with more than 15.6 million different likelihood.

Featured at some point Journal, Constant Mark and Bustle.

Inquiring Friend 2013

What exactly do men and women need to know, although not desire other people to learn they wish to learn?

When anyone desire to inquire things embarrassing in a public community forum, they often ending their unique declaration together with the expression “asking for a friend.” This trope is cliche to the stage that it’s probably constantly found in self-parody.

Wondering Friend is a Twitter bot that finds tweets that fit that speech design, after which anonymizes and reposts them.

Emojitracker 2013

Emojitracker try a research in realtime visualization of Twitter data.

Emoji, colorful symbols on smartphones which are used in text messaging, initial appeared in Japan but have since grown to explosive global popularity. Emojitracker makes use of realtime stream handling innovation we produced to imagine the complete volume of emoji consumption on Twitter in realtime. All 865 emoji signs tend to be recommended in a grid, which instantaneously lighting right up whenever symbolic is used in a tweet, presenting numerous interactions per 2nd. All round results should present the daunting volume of symbolic communication developing, and work out visible the designs in the way we utilize this brand new form of interaction.

Established in July 2013, it’s since assessed over 25 billion tweets.

I adapted Emojitracker into a physical interactive set up which had been highlighted at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in January 2014. The projected installation urged interacting with each other, and website visitors typically removed their smart phones in order to shape the display, or engaged in argument regarding general recognition and meaning of different signs.

Emojitracker was written about from the New Yorker, New York days, wall surface road record, Arizona Post, Chicago Tribune, Spiegel, ce Monde, Wired, Slate, Vice, Hyperallergic, facts mag, specialized, The Verge, Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, and many others. Subsequently displayed at Museo Nazionale del theatre (Torino, Italy), 2019.