Query Ergo Sum?

By Vanessa Medda

Topic: Personal Data

Medium: Book

Institute: Politecnico di Milano

Year: a.a. 2023-2024

What happens to our digital data when we manage to evade tracking and profiling? When you do not accept cookies, browse only in undercover mode, and the data that are usually used to profile a digital twin remain only scattered traces. Even though we are present on the web we remain invisible, our traces are dispersed among billions of data, and the searches we make vanish as soon as we close the device. I designed a magazine whose pages are an alternation between blank pages and acetate pages printed with white ink. What happens when pages overlap and the information shown is not visible?

Featured image of the project Query Ergo Sum?

Complementary image of the project Query Ergo Sum?

Metaphor used:

To talk about the theme, the metaphor of visibility/ invisibility was selected, which represents the actual condition of those who use the Internet and thus are present but at the same time remain invisible because they cannot be profiled. This is conveyed by the magazine through the alternation of blank and transparent pages that render the presence/ absence duality. The metaphor and the application of it to an editorial and paper product comes to life from the works of Vincenzo Agnetti and Emilio Isgrò.

Intended Meaning:

The infopoem aims to make the observer reflect with respect to online invisibility and to answer the question: how does it feel to be a ghost online? In the digital context in which we are immersed, it is possible to experience a paradox of existence: to be present online but at the same time not to be there, not to be visible.

Source:

Safari and Google search on computer and phone, in December 2023.