Almost everybody has at least one digital representation of themselves somewhere on the internet - Flickr, Facebook or MySpace - created to express ourselves, find friendship, connection and gain reputation. This profile data is constantly altered, retouched and updated to create a comprehensive image which draws attention; the currency of the web.
We're the same as everyone else in this respect, so this fascinating bachelor thesis entitled "IDENTITÄT - The 'Gestalt' of Digital Identity" by Jonas Loh and Steffen Fiedler really piqued our interest.
The above images are the physical result - a still life of an ongoing process about redefining and decorating.
More than one hundred thousand personal raw data sets were crawled from the web to fill parameters with subject matter. Based on the thesis that the digital identity is measurable and comparable, these data sets were then visualised using custom computational tools. These studies were designed to understand the data and determine its characteristics regarding the construction of digital identity.
After the analysis phase, the data was visually abstracted and interpreted to give the disembodied digital identity a unique and characteristic 'Gestalt' in the form of a generated sculpture.
The goal of the project was actually not to create a readable data sculpture of someone’s digital life, but to express how an analogue snapshot of complex digital identities can be presented.
Based on four defined criteria, all sculptures had to be comparable in their form, size and expression. After generating the sculptures based upon the particles only, Loh and Fiedler added time as an underlying factor. The particle system, which represents a persons interests, spreads in space until it is balanced.
The speed of this expansion, the thickness of the created hull and the starting point of the drawing process is connected to the factors age, activity and communication behaviour and it is this system which leads to an embodiment for the final 'Gestalt' of digital identity.
