The Netflix Cave

By Claire Valentine Emon Capone

Topic: Digital Traces

Medium: Object

Material: Cardboard

Institute: Politecnico di Milano

Year: a.a. 2023-2024

The infopoem is a box on which is written the Netflix content autoplayed I watched since 2015 (date of the creation of my account). This content is displayed to the viewer on the inner and outer parts of the box. This box will hang from the ceiling and the viewer will be able to interact with it by putting his head inside. The content written inside will be highlighted with a lamp. On the outer face is going to be written the name of the shows associated to the categories “Hooks” and “Trailers” autoplayed videos, and on the inner face is going to be shown the name of the content associated to the category autoplayed “TV Shows”.

Featured image of the project The Netflix Cave

Complementary image of the project The Netflix Cave

Metaphor used:

The Allegory of the Cave from Plato is used as a metaphor for the autoplayed content box. In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, prisoners are chained inside a dark cave, facing a wall where shadows are cast by objects behind them. The prisoners perceive these shadows as reality until one of them is freed, exposed to the outside world, and gains knowledge of the true forms of the objects. Similar to the prisoners in the cave perceiving shadows as reality, viewers engaging with autoplayed content may perceive the curated shows as their immediate reality without actively choosing them. The box becomes a representation of the confined space where content is presented, and the act of putting one's head inside symbolises the viewer stepping out of the cave to gain a more conscious understanding. Using this allegory, the project symbolises the transition from passive content consumption to active awareness, with engraved text representing enlightenment through interaction.

Intended Meaning:

The project aims to explore the impact of autoplayed content on user engagement and preferences within the Netflix platform. By creating an interactive and immersive experience through the engraved text, I seek to investigate how viewers respond to content categorized as "Hooks", "Trailers", and "TV Shows" when autoplayed.

Source:

Netflix user profile: it focuses on interactions with Netflix autoplayed content, categorised as “Hooks”, “Trailers”, and “TV Shows”.