Do You Agree?

Installation about license agreements and digital profiling

Together with Valentin Kraft and Hubert Kloskowski
Supervised by Prof. Roland Lambrette

The installation “Do You Agree?” illustrates the causality between blind acceptance of terms and conditions with the repressed knowledge about their consequences and aims to make the complex concept of digital profiling tangible.

Whenever you install a software or create an online profile you have to accept to some kind of terms and conditions. Even if we all seem to know about the dangers hidden in those contracts, nobody takes the time to read them. Amongst others, by accepting the contracts in most cases you give the companies the right to record data about you as a user. This data is processed by algorithms that track, analyze, and interprete your usage, behaviour and connections to create a detailed personal profile about you. The ratings are based on assumptions, sometimes they are fairly fitting but many seem almost presumptuous.

The exhibition space itself consists of spatially arranged prints of terms and conditions of some of the most commonly used software and websites and visualizes the pure mass of legal text hidden behind them. Before visitors enter the exhibition they have to agree to a blank terms and conditions dialog box. From that point on, their appearance is secretly evaluated through a facial analysis and their behaviour in the room is constantly monitored via a position tracking system. Combining this measurable facts with some assumed interpretations, a computer creates an individual profile for every visitor, including their gender, age, height, speed, attractivity and conformity. When the visitors leave the room they are confronted with a detailed print-out of this computer generated personal profile.