Alexandra Pfammatter

An artistic intervention and research project that explores intimacy under surveillance capitalism trough data sharing between personal devices.

If located in the same physical space, smartphones constantly and indirectly exchange information with each other. Our own devices datafy us and transmit those fractions to be received and interpreted by other apparatuses. Such exchanges culminate in the creation of a whole new data profile: defined trough both external influences and locally gathered user information. 'Profiles' that ultimately shape how we are perceived in a digital environment and are reflected back to us in the form of recommendations and personalised content. 'equine.zygote' explores those connections and how they impact our experience within a networked, but highly situated and monetised space. The central piece of the work is a cellphone that has been exclusively used to interact with horse related content of various kinds. If a visitor decides to interact with the piece, two mechanics are set into motion: First, the cell will visualise the data exchange between itself and the visitor's device in real-time. Furthermore, their phones are likely to become 'contaminated' through the subsequent data stream. The results of that – an inevitable emergence of personalised ads, recommended videos or pop-ups that are horse themed – can be submitted to a web server. There, they are added to an ever-growing archive in an effort to unravel the web of interpersonal connections within the blackbox of surveillance capitalism. Through this interaction, the visitors become an elementary part of the research and artwork themselves. Screenshots to: equine.zygote@gmail.com

Alexandra Pfammatter is a media artist who investigates the implications of transparency and opacity within systems of information. By exploring the accessibility and legibility of data or examining different perceptive and cognitive frameworks, her works reveal how such tensions create social and political asymmetries. Trough the manipulation of mediums, algorithmic processes and platforms, Pfammatter re-appropriates strategies of visibility and invisibility to revert those dynamics of control. By questioning assumption and meaning she subtly challenges the hidden structures that underlie our contemporary networked realities.