Inverting the Algorithmic Gaze: Confronting Platform Power Through Media Artworks

This dissertation looks to further the study of networked digital communication by centring material engagement and creative reconstitution as primary methods for the excavation of critical knowledge around platforms and algorithms. Platforms, which have become ubiquitous digital intermediaries in everyday life, are emblematic of the "control societies" described by Gilles Deleuze, in which electronic systems establish mechanisms of power and control that are both pervasive and inscrutable. Monopolistic digital platforms position the public in a highly asymmetrical relationship, in which users know very little about the processes by which algorithmic systems capture subjects through what I have termed "the algorithmic gaze": a process in which individuals are quantified and commodified according to the ever-expanding imperative of platforms to capture as much data as possible. The inscrutable nature of platforms and their algorithms demands innovative methods to unravel and analyse the cultural and political effects of platforms. This dissertation argues that conventional analyses of platform capitalism are strengthened through material encounters with algorithmic systems. By "opening up" platforms through creative reconstitution, new perspectives are gained on algorithms and their operation as political artefacts. Furthermore, I argue that the creation of artworks that reconstitute algorithmic technologies towards experiences that reveal, rather than conceal, the politics of platforms can serve as effective instruments for expanding critical literacy around digital technologies outside of a specialist context. Through the creation of a series of projects that confront the politics of platforms, this dissertation considers how media artworks might challenge existing imaginaries around platforms and algorithms, by engendering critical perspectives on platform capitalism and representing alternative models that resist the tendencies of the control society.