Diotima is a project being developed by
Manuel A Hernandez
and
Glenn Kaino
to use the Internet as an interactive
tool for understanding and challenging
common assumptions about
interpersonal stereotypes, communities, and how they
influence each
other.
By seeing, speaking to and guessing about others and recognizing
the way the
participant is being perceived, the artists are
constructing a scenario that
compresses large amounts of
information into a small amount of time and space.
The participant
is decompressing the same codes and interpreting them into
their
pre-existing, socially particular idea of expectations.
By having
the opportunity to examine the interpretation besides the codes on
a
personal level, information is redistributed along parallel
tracks of vision,
hearing and decisions. The hardware becomes
secondary, and the images and
purposes should be clear: to offer
individuals an experience that challenges
them to consider and
question the way they perceived others and how they were
perceived
so they might also understand how society mistakes
cultural
expectations as tokens of meaning.
The viewer of the Diotima project will participate in a survey,
answering
questions from the Meyers-Briggs Personality Test, a
common test used by
businesses and the United States federal
government to codify, group, and
thereby pre-determine worker
compatibility and individual aptitudes. Diotima
will then record a
short sound segment and an image of the participantŐs face.
The
participant sees a group of three faces from the database and based
only
on the image and sound categorizes these people. Choices will
include: the
person most likely to be a friend, least likely to be
a friend, and to fill out
the survey as accurately as possible for
the third person.
The option to see results of the three peopleŐs
surveys and how accurately
others have been at guessing compared to
the Meyers-Briggs index will follow.
The viewer will also see
statistical results on assumptions about their
personality. The
participant will have the option to try the survey for
themselves
again, guess about another group of individuals from the
database,
view statistics of guesses, or to chat with other viewers who
are
on-line via the Internet or at the other Diotima site.
The technical requirements of the physical piece are nominal. It
will be
software running on a Macintosh computer with a mouse,
connected to a local
standard Internet connection through a high
speed modem over an analog phone
line. Also connected to the
computer will be a software controlled microphone
and video camera.
Ideally, the hardware should be part of an on-going installation,
between a
number of community centers. Presently the artists can
only accommodate two
sites at a time, one at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago and the
other at the University of California
in Irvine. The only foreseeable cost at
these sites would be the
expense of a standard phone line installation, about
$65, or the
use of one existing line for the installation period of the
project.
Any site with a Macintosh computer hooked into the
Internet will be able to
participate, taking advantage of the
database created from the initial two
sites. Being on the Internet
will allow other sites to create compatible
settings that can use
the Diotima software to interchange data. A video input,
camera,
and microphone can allow these sites to add to the database supply
of
image and sound. Presently, the artists are seeking grants to
expand the
project regionally, to represent the makeup of the
United States more
accurately.
The reason the Internet is vital to this project is that the
Internet is
potentially a breeding ground for the questioning of
stereotypes, since there
is no visual standard communication
between users. Since the visual dimensions
of Virtual Reality are
still in the development stage, computer scientists are
the sole
proprietors due to equipment costs and education factors.
Allucquere Rosanne Stone and others offer theories about the role
technology
plays with individual relationships in Virtual Reality,
but not many people
have actually had the opportunity to test
interfaces looking for alternatives
or methods of using technology
to influence individuals.
The Internet, by nature of it's text based services, allows anyone to
influence the
way they are perceived, due to its non visual interface.
By
realizing and controlling this image, you can begin to understand
and
deconstruct the way society works in the larger population.
Cyberspace is an extension of the idea of Virtual Reality. Instead
of seeing
computer data converted into pictures that come from
human experience, as in a
flight simulator, or extensions from
human experience such as the "desktop"
metaphor used with personal
computers Cyberspace comprises computers,
telecommunications,
software and data in a more abstract form relating
the
transmissions taking place between them.
At the core of Cyberspace
is the Internet: the existing global collection of
interconnected
regional and wide-area networks that use IP (Internet
Protocol)
allowing intercommunication between computers over large
geographic
distances. It does this by connecting the worlds local networks,
in
effect "inter-networking" them. The Internet is the most powerful
computer
network on the planet simply because it's the biggest. It
encompasses 1.3
million computers that are used by up to 30 million
people in more than 40
countries.
There have been many recent portrayals of computer users in the
media. Films
such as
Lawnmower Man
,
Sneakers
, and
Jurassic
Park
have shown society images of computer users, each being of
similar race, sex,
and culture. This project will be an aid to the
Internet community, as it will
challenge the legitimacy of these
stereotypes. It will also affect non Internet
users, by exposing
them to people who use and have knowledge of computers, yet
are not
necessarily unethical hackers. The way the Internet community has
been
labeled by the mass media is very similar to the way minority
cultures are also
labeled. Thus, to question this one stereotype,
the idea of challenging others
is positively reinforced.
This project was displayed at the University of California, Irvine,
for display
in the Fine Arts Gallery from December 7, 1993 - December
13, and at the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery
2, Opening Pandora's Box, from
December 17, 1993 - January 28,
1994. It is pending notification from the
Social and Public Art
Resource Center of Los Angeles, and the San Francisco
Exploratorium.