Kevin Day

sonic prostheses (a spatial bar graph of users)
01.12–02.11.2023

Taking the form of a “spatial” bar graph, the sound installation utilizes sound recordings of human- computer interaction to scrutinize the ubiquity of algorithmic quantification through the extraction of user data. The installation in its entirety consists of nine steel pipes protruding from the wall in various lengths. Playing from the speakers mounted on each pipe are sound recordings of device-usage from a variety of contexts and activities. The artist, adopting and amplifying the function of the analytic in a reversal of roles, had quantified the recordings according to a set of subjective, arbitrary, and nonsensical criteria. The results of such measurements are reflected by the lengths of the pipes (the “bars”). Depicted through this abridged version of the installation at Centre CLARK are three instances of digital device usage: working, using a smartphone in a public setting, and playing online video games.

Through the installation, each user has been profiled through the data derived from their device usage, exacerbating their reduction to just an indicator on a graph, disembodied and decontextualized, represented by only the pipe lengths and the sounds of digital immersion and clandestine extraction. However, the installation is also intended to be a “counter-graph” that deviates from its normative function. The categories measured by the artist are not of conventional use, but are idiosyncratic and based on spontaneous assessments, and therefore useless for commercial exploitation and state control. In addition, beyond surfacing and resisting the process of data mining, the project also highlights the inevitably non-neutral process of quantification. Despite claims of objectivity, all algorithmic processes are based on categories and classifications devised by human stakeholders (in this case, by the artist), embedding them with particular socio-political values and intentions. The result is not only reductive, subject to potential exploitation, but also non-neutral. Foregrounding the non- neutrality of encoding, the persistence of extraction, and the exploitation that follows, becomes ever more pressing in the context of today’s digital landscape.

The artist would like to thank Ksenia Cheinman, Simone Day, Antonio Krezic, Nathan McNinch, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the team at Centre Clark for their support in the realization of this.