Together with a friend and artist, Dora Frey, we asked ourselves about the theme of “Attention”. We tried an experiment: not communicating with each other through social networks for the duration of two weeks.

These artificial and superficial communications diminish our attention with others. We wanted to disconnect from these exchanges and reconnect through creative dialogue.

Communicating solely through social media seemed to erode our dialogue and capacity to create.

Both of us, deprived of our daily communications – which were losing their meaning – had to create “thoughts” for each other. These thoughts could be formulated in completely free forms. The only condition was that we had to reveal our project to each other within two weeks.

For my part, I wondered about the influence of algorithms on our attention. The phrase Becoming Algorithm refers to the fact that the algorithms of social networks diminish our attention and thus literally end up thinking for us, or becoming us.

The french philosopher, Bernard Stiegler, talks about ‘becoming an algorithm’ in relation to alienation by technology. He theorises that in the face of this becoming algorithm, we must reconnect with technique, and therefore creation.

In this work, I put Dora’s practice, which touches on historically feminine techniques, into dialogue with an algorithmic language. These algorithms are those that influence our choices and actions i.e cookies.

On strips of fabric, I printed the basic cookie algorithm with a typewriter. The strips of fabric are hung on a clothesline and float in the wind – thus echoing Dora’s practice. As the viewer approaches, they can see the traces of the algorithm influencing our behaviour, contributing to our alienation and – ultimately – Thinking For You.

This website and the works by Emma Carter Millet & Thomas Clerc are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.