The Tools Series is a series of Baltan Sessions that examines the complex and changing relationships artists and designers have with the technologies and tools they develop, modify or use to create, with an aim to explore social awareness around the tool choices they make as well as the (aesthetic) influences of these choices on the work they create.

During the Naked on Pluto project one of the key ways to confront the problems of centralised social networks turned out to be to encourage a deeper understanding of the processes and protocols of these sites.

So, like the previous workshop at CCCB, we centred this around a web application called FaceSponge, which we developed as a social programming interface giving quick access to the Facebook API and allowing participants to try out each other’s scripts. The other key issue was to find out people’s opinions, and so we collected answers on post-it’s to three questions for each area, which the participants later sorted for presentation to the public.

Social advertising

This workshop was perfectly timed with Facebook’s IPO, and as 82% of it’s revenue comes from advertising we started off by working on a simple spoof advert. We took one friend, and picked something they have ‘liked’ and wrote some code to promote it. This is what happens on social networks where a brand gets advertised to you because one of your friends follows or likes it. Being able to put a friend’s name in an advert is seen as an exciting future of advertising (or perhaps less so as the share price continues to drop).

function runme() {
    FB.api("/me/friends", function(friends) {
        var friend=friends.data[0];
        FB.api("/"+friend.id+"/likes", function(likes) {
            var like=likes.data[0];
            display(friend.name+" endorses "+like.name+" BUY SEVERAL TODAY!");
            FB.api("/"+like.id+"/picture?type=large", function(picture) {
                display_image(picture);
            });
        });
    });
}

Privacy

There are vast amounts of pictures available on facebook, and it was fun to write a script that presented them all back at in a chaotic manner without any other information. This also gave us a chance to show how the privacy on Facebook is imaginary, as the URL’s FB gives you for your friend’s pictures are public – regardless of anyone’s privacy settings.

// showing the holes in the walls                                               
// you think your photos are private?                                           
// these images are accessible without a login                                  
function runme() {
    FB.api('/me/friends', function(friends) {
        friends.data.forEach(function(friend) {
            FB.api('/'+friend.id+'/photos', function(f) {
                 if (f.data.length>0) {
                     var gallery=f.data[0];
                     // show the public url                                     
                     display(gallery.images[0].source);
                     // show the image                                          
                     display_image(gallery.images[0].source);
                 }
            });
        });
    });
}

Social pressures

The third area we were interested in exploring was the more subtle ways that social media are affecting communication methods. We came up with this strange script that collects the last things posted by your friends and puts them together without information on who posted them, or who they are for:

function runme() {
    FB.api('/me/friends', function(friends) {
        friends.data.forEach(function(friend) {
            FB.api('/'+friend.id+'/feed', function(feed) {
                if (feed.data && feed.data.length>0
                    && feed.data[0].message) {
                    display(feed.data[0].message);
                }
            });
        });
    });
}

We continued to play with and adapt these scripts in order to show more information. The mood was interesting as it flipped from serious to hilarity and then slight awkwardness at what we were dredging up. We followed each of these practical sessions by collecting feedback on thoughts and emotions for each section. Although this was a very demanding workshop (changing between coding, politics, funny juxtapositions of friend’s personal data and having to think about how it felt) we recorded a wide range of thoughts – from the dismissive, “doesn’t matter” to the outright enraged. Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this workshop was being able to expose these mechanisms to groups of people normally considered ‘users’.

Session organised in collaboration with Fundación Telefónica.

WORKSHOP: Facesponge with Aymeric Mansoux and Gerald Kogler. 10h-14h

Have you ever wondered what is going on “behind the scenes” on social networks like Facebook? In this workshop we will explore our so-called social data and get a glimpse at how it is viewed by the company and third parties who access it. In order to break several myths about Facebook applications, you will be invited to take part in designing small programs that extracts and manipulate you and your friend’s online information. Nothing will be written back to Facebook at any time, we will only be reading existing data. No data will be collected or viewable by anyone else.

No programming experience is required. Basic knowledge of javascript can be useful to explore more advanced possibilities of the Facesponge sandbox.

This workshop is part of the Naked on Pluto project, a critical text adventure Facebook game concerned with issues of online privacy and control within centralized commercial social networks, designed and written by Marloes de Valk, Aymeric Mansoux and Dave Griffiths.

Facesponge is developed in collaboration with Baltan Laboratories.
All Naked on Pluto software is released under free culture licenses.

Schedule:

* Naked on Pluto presentation
* Gameplay session
* Anatomy of an FB app
* Introduction to Facesponge
* Breaking FB apps myths
* Group discussion

Practical information:

* The workshop will be taught in English.
* You will need to bring your own laptop.
* Places are limited.

DEBATE: Identity and simulation. Artificial life on the networks. With Jussi Parikka, Pau Waelder, Aymeric Mansoux and Mónica Bello. 19h-21h

Internet is changing our way of understanding the public space. The Web has become a dominant structure that covers all aspects of contemporary society. The proliferation of virtual agents, designed to stimulate non-fortuitous reactions and meetings, reconfigures the profile of individuals in dynamics that are innovative but also invasive, and generates new forms of control. In this brand new context, identity and simulation become decisive themes of behaviour on the Web.

REGISTRATION:

Workshop + Debate: 6€
Please send an email explaining the reasons for your interest to cursos@cccb.org
Limited capacity!

Debate: 3€
Tel-entrada (tel. 902 101 212 / www.telentrada.com)
CCCB page for the event