Making Algorithms Public: Rendering Visable the Operations of Algorithmic Systems Through Design

This thesis addresses the need to understand the role and make visible the workings and implications of algorithms that make possible digital services and systems that are routinely employed to automate and mediate key aspects of social and cultural life. This practice-based study proceeds by way of case studies focusing on the operations and politics of various types of algorithms. The research includes a cross-disciplinary combination of design and computing, employing ‘inventive methods’ that probe, expose and materialize algorithmic systems. The outcome will be a collection of design artefacts that will support the study of, and critically reflect upon, the role and politics of algorithms in social and cultural life.

Year 1 has resulted in the development of a literature review that begins simply to ask ‘what is an algorithm?’ followed by an interest in prior art case studies and the beginnings of a proposal for adopting ‘algorithmic assemblages’ as a theoretical model for studying algorithms applied to social and cultural mediation. In the first year several ‘sketches’ were developed: the beginnings of projects and ideas that could be taken further. One that stood out was ‘Novice Art Blogger’, an automated blogger that uses an image recognition algorithm to process abstract art and publish its own commentary on Tumblr. The ‘bot’ amassed ten thousand followers in its first two weeks and received wide media coverage. Novice Art Blogger and other experiments will be documented in the PhD as part of an ‘annotated portfolio’: a method proposed by Professor Bill Gaver who joint supervises the doctorate together with Dr Alex Wilkie.