PPLKPR
By LAUREN MCCARTHY & KYLE MCDONALD (US) 2015
pplkpr is an app that algorithmically determines how people make you feel, so that you don’t have to. Using a smartwatch, pplkpr tracks and monitors your physical and emotional response to people around you, and takes action on your behalf to optimise your social life.
pplkpr uses a complex metric called 'heart-rate variability', which tracks changes in heart rhythm to determine your emotional state. This data is correlated with the people you interact with, to determine who should be auto-scheduled into your life and who should be deleted. It automatically composes texts, schedules hangouts, and blocks contacts.
pplkpr invites us to question the implications of quantified living for relationships. Who owns the data created between two people, if it is captured and used? Would you give control over to an algorithm if it could understand your relationships and make better interpersonal decisions than you could yourself? Haven’t you done this already, in other ways?
BIO
Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist based in Los Angeles whose work examines how issues of surveillance, automation, and network culture affect our social relationships. She is the creator of p5.js, an open-source platform for learning creative expression through code online. Lauren's work has been exhibited at Ars Electronica, Fotomuseum Winterthur, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.
Kyle McDonald is an artist who works in the open with code. He is a member of F.A.T. Lab, community manager for openFrameworks, adjunct professor at ITP, and has been a resident at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon, as well as YCAM in Japan. His work has been commissioned by and shown at exhibitions and festivals around the world, including Ars Electronica, Sonar/OFFF, Eyebeam, Anyang Public Art Project, Cinekid, CLICK Festival, NODE Festival, FITC, and many others.