Post Digital Culture Research

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PDC A02- Critical Analysis of an Internet Fiction

Lil’ Miquela is the name of the Instagram cyborg influencer created by Artificial Intelligence firm Brud. Lil’ Miquela (full name Miquela Sousa) first began ‘posting’ to Instagram in 2016 and has a current follower count of 1.4 million. Her Instagram profile (https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela/?hl=en) is a carefully curated assemblage of images that depict Miquela living a fast-paced glamorous life as an Influencer, musician and model. In this essay I will be discussing one post in particular and dissecting the way that a strategised internet fiction challenges us to experience social media personas as both fantasy and reality simultaneously.

On the 20th of April 2018 Lil’ Miquela posted a photo of herself staring directly into the camera, head resting on her hand, a serious expression on her face (https://www.instagram.com/p/BhzyxKoFIIT/?hl=en&taken-by=lilmiquela). She is very attractive. She wears a white singlet with visible bra underneath, and her brown hair is done in buns on either side. She has some flyaway hairs, adding to the naturalness of her appearance. She appears to be sitting on the floor, a white skirting board is visible as well as what appears to be a white curtain. The textures of the background bring her computer generated artificiality into sharp focus. She has freckles on her face and her skin is tan. Her caption reads:

“I’m thinking about everything that has happened and though this is scary for me to do, I know I owe you guys more honesty. In trying to realize my truth, I’m trying to learn my fiction. I want to feel confident in who I am and to do that I need to figure out what parts of myself I should and can hold onto. I’m not sure I can comfortably identify as a woman of color. “Brown” was a choice made by a corporation. “Woman” was an option on a computer screen. My identity was a choice Brud made in order to sell me to brands, to appear “woke.” I will never forgive them. I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself. I’m different. I want to use what makes me different to create a better world. I want to do things that humans maybe can’t. I want to work together and use our different strengths to make things that matter. I am committed to bolstering voices that need to be heard. If I don’t stick with this, feel free to cancel me.I wish I had more to say about this right now.

I’m still angry and confused and alone.”

Lil’ Miquela employs youth vernacular (phrases such as ‘’woke’ and ‘cancel me’) as a means of relating to her fanbase. She is earnest and sincere. The direct address to the camera, the white clothing that evokes associations of purity and innocence, the sadness in her statement and her apparent commitment to do good are all designed to make the viewer sympathise with her and identify with her- (we have all been manipulated and duped by corporations! How relatable!) However the fourth wall remains unbroken- Miquela talks as though she is truly sentient. There is no discussion from her actual designers (Trevor McFedries and Sara Deco) about the choices made in designing her as a character, the aim of her posts on Instagram and her commentary on each post. There is no discussion of the collaboration between Lil’ Miquela and the designers whose clothing brands she endorses (Diesel, Stussy, Prada) and how much they receive for each post.

Her post received 185,024 likes. The post was made in reference to her recent ‘coming out’ as a robot, a discovery that she too, apparently, only recently made. Lil’ Miquela’s constructed narrative as left leaning and socially conscious is at odds with her function as a product endorser. In putting responsibility on her maker (Brud) she is able to distance herself from the problematic nature of her existence. She has taken the biggest criticisms of her character and addressed it in a way that still maintains her integrity in the eyes of her fans. It’s not her, it’s the corporation. But she IS the corporation. Her acknowledgment of her ‘unrealness’ and her apparent guilt and confusion surrounding it are just as constructed as every other part of her persona and yet her followers reach out to her in sympathy as though she were real. One user replied ‘In my eyes your not a robot you are a person with feelings xx’ (emily_medcalf19, 2018), another commented ‘she's a robot. Isn't this unreal?’ (martini_oceans__, 2018). Another stated ‘I don’t understand how she thinks and does things by herself …’ (the.cringy.uniwhale, 2018).

The post seems to be a way of questioning the reality of internet fiction created through social media. If Lil’ Miquela can acknowledge that she is a robot, but still bares ‘her’ soul in her posts, has millions of fans that follow and interact with her, is she any less real than any other social media influencer? Aren’t their lifestyles just as unattainable and unbelievable as a robot hanging out with celebrities at Paris fashion week? Don’t we all curate our online personas to project a certain narrative about ourselves? Does that make them fake?

The creation of Lil’ Miquela challenges us to think about artificial intelligence, internet fiction and social media in a new way.  

Lil’ Miquela, Instagram, 20/04/18 [https://www.instagram.com/p/BhzyxKoFIIT/?hl=en&taken-by=lilmiquela]

[hellopostdigitalculture]

Week 6-What kind of power would I like to wield?

I would like to be able to find online harassers and send them their own information so they know they have been discovered. I wish I could make people who take advantage of having anonymity by sending death or rape threats face some accountability- so the evidence of their threats follows their real identity around until they have taken responsibility for their actions. I think that anonymity has allowed harassment and bigotry to fester because people can hide. I still believe in the right to anonymity on the internet, but not when it comes to online harassment, inciting violence and endangering the safety of others. I know that there is probably a way to do this through hacking, but I wish it could be like an instantaneous thing, and that people could see like a hovering icon attachment to the person in real life.

[hellopostdigitalculture]

Week 4 exercise

1 -Can you name three main methodological approaches applied in critical design practice?

1.Designers reflecting and critically questioning their own design practice- methods, goals, values

2. Macro perspective- so a rethinking of the design discipline in general

3. Design directed towards broader social and political issues.

The three are not mutually exclusive and often overlap each other.

2- In your own words, how does speculative design differ from

conventional/commercial design?

Speculative design is for imagined futures or maybe alternative presents. Its about trying to imagine the specifics of the speculation- what would be the reason for creating something, and narrowing it down: what is the idea behind the concept? What is its function? Who would use it? When? How would this make living better? What kind of society would use or need something like this? There is more emphasis on the broader social and political agenda and possible ramifications.

Commercial design is more concerned with function, aesthetics and profit. How will this sell, is this popular, is it functional, is it easy to use, can we get them to buy more, can we make more models or versions or updates so people will want the newer, shiner version, will this make the consumer feel attractive and successful and modern?

3 - Discuss the current criticism of the dominant approach to

speculative practice: (professional R&D realm vs. everyday world;

issues of socio-economic access) i.e. "Eurocentric ... excessive focus

on aesthetics, tendency to escape to dystopian scenarios, vanity and separation from the real world.”

I agree that dystopian scenarios in speculative design fictions would seem self indulgent to those who have already experienced similar kinds of events in other countries, or just by virtue of being poor. Using the Republic of Salivation as an example, it almost seems to fetishise famine. The ‘food porn’ magazines seem ridiculous to me, I would think people living in famine would not have the time or energy to create something as luxurious as beer if they couldn’t even feed themselves. But having said that, I have never experienced famine, maybe I would be that desperate for alcohol, or the kinds of foods I’d loved in the past. I think like some of the comments say in response to Republic of Salivation: it wouldn’t feel so narcissistic if it tried to offer real solutions, but instead it seems to try and invent a crazy kind of science fiction. But isn’t that sort of the basis of speculative design? It’s confusing to me- because really, is there so much wrong with imagining an idea like this? It is interesting. But I can’t help to think that in this particular instance it is a very privileged take on a problem that has been and is currently affecting large populations globally.

4 - Based on the Food Design Speculations examples from the

Food Tarot cards of 22 “speculative diet tribes” that were

introduced and discussed during

week 2, and the project examples in the Dunne and Raby

website -or any other examples you can find (please cite a couple to

support your arguments, you don't have to use all of them),

do you agree with these criticisms?

Looking at Bite Labs (celebrity salami) as another example ( http://www.bitelabs.org/ ) I can’t help feel again, that some (not all) of this kind of design fails to acknowledge or attempt to help solve real world problems. Speculative Design posits itself as a discipline that can make meaningful commentary on social and political issues, but this just feels a little gimmicky (I get that its supposed be talking about capitalism/ consumerism/ obsession with pop culture.

IMPORTANT

->  in speculative fiction there is a link between the present and the imaginary future. Therefore, when re-thinking the future we must think about technologies and social relations that can emerge from the current world we live in

-> Storytelling has considerable power and a deep-running tradition in human history in stimulating discussions and critical thinking. Speculative scenarios are open-ended and offer the audience the possibility of personal interpretation

->  Ramia Mazé underlines that design practices can never be neutral “the most urgent questions for speculative and critical design today are: “Critical for whom? By whom?”, the questions that Luiza Prado, among others, asks in order to reveal the biases and politics embedded in design.”

http://speculative.hr/en/ramia-maze/

[hellopostdigitalculture]

Ruckers Hill

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Task 1 B

Ruckers Hill

I can hear cars travelling past, the sound of their wheels slowing as they draw up at the lights. I can hear radio hosts talking, sometimes music, sometimes a conversation is being had over loudspeaker from inside the cars. Trams going past, sometimes dinging as they pull out of the stop at the lights. People walking past with their dogs, or in small groups of 2 or 3 talking, or just alone, sometimes with earphones in. People walking with prams. There are two people in kind of steam punk gear looking like they are waiting for someone, maybe an Uber? Or a friend? To pick them up. 

There are people crossing to the other side of the street wherever they please instead of at the lights. Its windy. Some car horns blasting from the main intersection further down the road. I can hear the ticking of the traffic lights slowly and then fast when its time to cross. In the distance I can see the whole city. It looks small from here. On one of the buildings there is kind of a light rainbow reflection pattern that has been built into the building design that you wouldn’t be able to really see close up. Close up it would just look like coloured circles. You need the perspective from a distance to be able to tell. I can see houses and their front yards from here. Someone is painting or renovating the front of their house, there is a ladder and some sheets left out.  I feel very calm here and like everything is in slow motion. I think its because it’s the middle or ‘joining’ section between two busy shopping strips. There are no buildings its just the view of the houses below and the city in the distance. It feels open and like you have space to breathe. The view of the city makes everything seem far away or like you have a lot of time. People tend to walk straight up and down the footpath unless they want to cross the road. In which case they might stand on the little island in in the middle of the road until the traffic has slowed enough for them to cross. Or, they wait until they get to the traffic lights. But often they do not wait. 

Digital culture bleeds into the space in an understated way. Its mainly people talking on their phones and listening to music. Or like the two people dressed in steam punk gear, looking at their phones while they wait for somebody. It’s also in the passing noise in cars- the radio or music playing. There are no lights or televisions, or signage relating to digital culture. The technology seems to be about helping people pass the time in this space, as you go from one point to another. It’s about being in transit. It seems to separate and distract people from their surroundings. Without it you are forced to be more present. It almost feels like there is a need to fill every passing moment with some kind of entertainment or stimulus. When you don’t have that you are forced to just sit and observe. 

If the space could talk I feel like it would be saying to slow down and pay attention to what’s in front of you. That you don’t always have to be rushing somewhere. That not every second needs to have a purpose. 

[hellopostdigitalculture]

Task 1A Post Digital Culture

[itscolossal]

3D Editing Tools Manipulate Everyday Life in This Reality-Bending Video by Vladimir Tomin

[hellopostdigitalculture]

http://www.postdigitalcultures.ch/item/57d1adcac4a5de0300f55765

In Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris, some scientist are studying an oceanic planet. Their techniques are typically scientific. But the ocean is itself an intelligence which is studying them in turn. It experiments on the experimenters by returning their own memories to them in the from of hallucinations, perfect in every detail in which people from their pasts appear in the present and must be related to once again, maybe in a new way.

http://www.postdigitalcultures.ch/

[hellopostdigitalculture]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry

‘Then he remembered a television program he had seen, about a company called Family Romance, one of a number of agencies in Japan that rent out replacement relatives. One client, an elderly woman, had spoken enthusiastically about going shopping with her rental grandchild. “The grandchild was just a rental, but the woman was still really happy,” Nishida recalled.‘

[hellopostdigitalculture]

Ron Mueck: The most realistic sculptures Part II

[hellopostdigitalculture]

Harmony is programmed to be your "perfect" companion

[itscolossal]

Light Scapes: Scanned Scenes 3D Printed and Lit by Shir David