Tactics for resisting platform passivity
THIS IS A TOTAL WORK IN PROGRESS: poorly conceived, intellectually lax, but - being a pandemic project - I will probably never bother to give it the polish of a finished product, which isn't really my jam anyway. So...
With our ability to roam the physical environment necessarily compromised, our platforms - Netflix, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, etc. etc. - have taken on an even greater significance as the sites of our work and leisure. But how do we inhabit them in psychogeographic terms, as virtual spaces that shape our behaviours and emotions? Is it possible to find alternative paths to the passive consumption modalities that a data-driven culture industry expects of us? Can we amble through our platforms in ways unforeseen by their designers? And understand their infrastructures better through our experiments and investigations?
Ergo, a psychogeographical approach to platform studies as a means to engage with these infrastructures in novel ways (please note: I am not a licensed psychogeographer).
My primary interest is in Spotify because I loves mah music but I encourage contributions from other platform psychogeographers who have happened upon insights, hacks, subversive games and other discoveries. DM me on the Twitter (which is how I presume you got here)? @retrofuturiste, thanks.
Tactic 1: Oblique Strategies for Spotify
- A series of prompts to encourage tinkering around with Spotify's recommendation and randomization algorithms. Think of them as producing the conditions for a low-stakes creative partnership with an algorithm.
Tactic 2: Spotify Diary (COMING SOON)
- Writings about my experiments with the Spotify platform, how these in turn affect Spotify's recommendation features like Discover Weekly and Daily Mix playlists, and other observations. It verges on stream of consciousness. I recommend against reading it.