Oliver in a Bubble
autum 2021 - summer 2022While interning at the Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies, Andrea got the opportunity to translate one of their research papers (An Audit of Misinformation Filter Bubbles on YouTube: Bubble Bursting and Recent Behavior Changes︎︎︎) into animated educational material about the technological cause behind the spread of misinformation online, and much more.
Andrea is the author of the story, the illustrator, the animator and project manager. She also headed a successful social media campaign which resulted in an engagement of ≈ 30 000. Together with her colleague, Andrea also gave interviews on the topic of disinformation online to two influential newspapers.
YouTube Video︎︎︎
Project Website︎︎︎
This project was partially funded by the O2 Fair Foundation as a part of the grant scheme ‘Let’s find common ground’︎︎︎.
Drift Engine
spring 2022At its inception, the World Wide Web was viewed as a tool to democratise access to a seemingly infinite pool of information. A new frontier for exploration and knowledge. Over time, personalisation algorithms were introduced to help the user not only to sort through information but mostly to streamline advertising online. As a result, algorithms create a barrier between the user and much of the information out there by deciding what we do and do not see. Most of our online activity today happens on “closed garden” platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that use personalisation algorithms. Where is then the wonder, the exploration? The web is larger than any metropolis, but browsing it today feels like walking down a narrow circular hallway. Search engines can be seen as the main entrance to the web, however, in their current form, they do not allow for the serendipity that comes from searching in the physical world.
The Drift Engine, like the Psychogeographist’s Dérive, aims to “overcome the processes of ‘banalisation’ by which the everyday experience of our surroundings becomes one of drab monotony”. The Drift Engine tries to return the wandering, the exploration and serendipity into browsing. It is meant to spark wandering and accidental encounters to aid the creation of new routes to access information.
This project was one of Andrea’s graduation projects from the Design Academy Eindhoven.
The Digital Self
autumn 2020This publication is the culmination of a semester-long research project into data, identity, online profiles, and data ownership. It was created as a project in the course Making Futures at Design Academy Eindhoven in autumn of 2020.
We have all heard the phrase that “Facebook knows us better than we know ourselves”, but is that really so? This question is the starting point of the project. The publication traces the steps of the research and explores related topics encountered in the process. Topics such as astrology, online dating, anguish and algorithmic biases.
You can read and download this publication from Issuu︎︎︎ You can view the accompanying video essay here︎︎︎
