Cambridge Artalytica

When Cambridge Analytica’s marketing practices became public in the spring of 2018, everyone looked surprised. European and American lawmakers, leaders, entire governments were surprised. But did any of them or other experts really have no idea that the Facebook API existed, had never used it or at least read its documentation, and therefore could not have known that this leak, or rather just the use of the data, was something perfectly normal?

Who knew something like that were software artists… In this talk we focus on software art on the Internet before and after the Cambridge Analytica case. Could software art have been giving us warning signs we didn’t want to hear? And what are the implications for software art and sociological research of the data-lockdown imposed in response to the CA case? Are there ways forward? And why at all?

For what is software art in a network that is not horizontal and democratic, that is a city that does not belong to us but in which we must live?