A critical exploration of my digital footprint to unearth hidden aspects of self in online spaces.

A website that explores my digital identity through data mining and self-reflection.

UP.LOADED serves as a project to unearth my personal digital identity through a suite of experiments conducted using my own personal digital data from Facebook over 10 years. Being a research-based critical design project, these experiments are framed under an ethnography*, self-reflective lens.

Themes such as changes in personality over time, relationships and identity are explored and reflected upon—these experiments act as stimuli, which are paired with a reflective response in the form of code poetry, a form of creative poetry written under the rules of code/programming language that can still be understood by people not necessarily specialising in code.

*ETHNOGRAPHY:
“A branch of anthropology... the study of the beliefs, social interactions, and behaviours of small societies, involving participation and observation over a period of time, and the interpretation of the data collected.” Loshini Naidoo — An Ethnography of Global Landscapes and Corridors (2012).

A world where digital and physical start to blend.

We live in a world where digital identities play an increasingly crucial role in our lives and how our personalities are shaped as our physical and digital lives begin to blur. It has altered the way we approach interaction and connections in relationships and the way we work with and share information.

Additionally, our actions online exist in the form of indestructible data, and thus creates an ‘online archive’ of our actions, relationships and sense of identity. What can we learn about ourselves if we investigate this past? This idea of a perpetual digital space and morphing of identities will only become more significant as time goes on—so, it’s time to talk and find out about our data online.

This project acts as provocations to explore these questions by positioning myself as a case study and sharing my personal learnings and reflections—Our digital information is only a few clicks away, and UP.LOADED endeavours to spark that urge to take action and reflect on our digital information to discover new meanings and sense of self.

UP.LOADED - Carmen Yeh 2021

This project was produced by Carmen Yeh as part of the Visual Communication Honours degree at the University of Technology Sydney. Special thanks to Monica Monin and Zoë Sadokierski for assisting in initial experimentation and general guidance, and Alexandra Chalmers Braithwaite for significantly contributing with project development, direction and guidance. Credits to Maggie So for assisting with web development.

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