Compiler: Are / You / Actually

A quiz on online idleness!

Are / You / Actually asks participants about their time spent online and general perception of time well spent. A series of short agree/disagree style questions is interspersed with chances to write and sketch personalised responses. As they complete the questions, an abstracted visualisation of their answers begins to develop. This visualisation reacts in real time to answers and their level of interaction with the page, creating a space to play with the aesthetics and underlying structures of meditative apps and games.

Follow the link below to launch the artwork

The quiz encourages participants to think of their mouse or touchscreen as a ‘smart camera’, and contemplate how these devices and the data we produce with them are part of complex processes related to Surveillance Capitalism, even in our idle time.

Are / You / Actually was commissioned by Phoenix in early 2020 in response to the theme of ‘idleness’ online, curated by Anoushka Goodwin. Published at a time of continuing disruption due to the coronavirus pandemic, this theme and the resulting artwork have taken on a new urgency as many of us have been forced to spend even more of our time occupying online spaces

Compiler is a platform for conceptual digital art, curation and critical practice – in institutional and alternative spaces. Led by Tanya Boyarkina, Oscar Cass-Darweish and Eleanor Chownsmith, the group’s artistic and curatorial practice investigates socio-political challenges in digital culture.

Compiler explores the possibilities of digital art and curation as a process of discovery through synaesthetic experience of technology. Their aim is to create accessible works and events through which audiences can delve deeper into digital technologies that shape day-to-day experience. Topics covered include: cyber security, surveillance and climate emergency. While projects often expand sensory possibilities afforded by our collaboration with technical objects and virtual worlds: drinking security software, dancing html or moulding a viral object.