Digital Footprints: an NCACE funded exploratory project

NCACE Micro-Commissions: Developing New Cultural Knowledge Exchange Collaborations

Daisy Bow Du Toit, Katie Dale-Everett and Thomas Buckley

Project outline:

Utilising Katie's experience in digital choreography, Thomas's background in immersive technologies, and Daisy's PHD exploring content creation as an artistic and meaningful

We aimed to explore how technology is used by others and ourselves through our combined interest in history, personal agency and our shared concerns around cloud storage, and the impact it will have on the environment and coming generations' data rights around the imminent new threat of ‘blockboxed’ digital identities.

Through a workshop we wanted to find a way to physicalise people’s potential digital footprint, adopting concepts like the digital twin, installations of lived heritage to make intangible cloud-hosted, curated, unowned identities visceral practice. Additionally, our partnership is uniquely positioned to investigate and innovate around the concept of digital identities and their tangible impacts on society and the environment.

This collaboration aimed to expand each others understanding of both research into social media but also into using artistic practice as evolving research. By working with Daisy, creative practitioners Thomas and Katie will consider themes within her work - such as social media as craft, the ‘god’ algorithm and TikTok being used as a replacement for google.

About the organisers

Katie Dale-Everett (digital choreographer)
Since graduating with a 1st BA(Hons) in Choreography from Falmouth University (2014), Katie has developed opportunities for young people and communities who face barriers to accessing dance through her work as a choreographer and producer. She is the Artistic Director of KDE Dance, Sussex Dance Network and Co-Artistic Director of Kabecca Films. She is a Creative Producer at OBX Hastings. Her choreographic work is interdisciplinary spanning motion capture, MR, film and audio and is made for unconventional theatre spaces such as sheltered accommodation, youth centres and community halls. Supporters of her work include Studio Wayne McGregor's ‘QuestLab Network’, Goldsmiths University's ‘Mocap Streamer Residency’ and Arts Council England National Lottery funding.

Thomas Buckley (creative technologist)
Thomas is a creative technologist working across theater and the arts. They are associate artist at the Portsmouth Guildhall, developing new works that use immersive technologies alongside embodied and sensory practices like dance and contemporary sculpture. Their work explores memory and alternative ways of preserving and representing intangible heritage through artistic expression. Last year they were guest curator at Brighton's digital arts festival; Dreamy Place and collaborated on a programme of large scale public artworks and critical discussion of digital culture. They are an alumni Fellow of the Royal Shakespeare Company where they worked with international partners to develop immersive retellings of classic works of shakespeare.

Daisy Bow Du Toit (PhD student and creative content creator)
Daisy Bow Du Toit is a current PhD candidate at the Kingston School of Art, supported by the AHRC Techne funding program. Her research focuses on the craft of content creation and its intersection with digital media, specifically examining the communities of online crafters who connect and shape practice through Instagram. As a crafter of cyanotype printing, she creates visually-striking, narrative-driven content using tools to hand, that is tailored to social media platforms. Riding the wave of the algorithm and consistent creative practice has amassed a 140k followers on TikTok/70k on Instagram. Her work has resonated with a wide range of audiences, such as the Heritage Craft Association to Levis, gaining millions of views. Her research sheds light on the skill and performative aspects of digital content creation, and provides insight into how this content can foster a sense of community and have influence in the preservation of cultural heritage. Find her @daisybow_craft

The Digital Footprints Instagram account

See it here

We created an Instagram account as our blog. This was a space to both share information, connect ourselves as creatives to the project and to invite others in. It works as an advert, a space for information and connection, and an archive for the work produced as part of the workshop. After submitting this report we will add some of this content to Katie’s website blog and Daisys website blog.

Within 3 weeks of its creation we have 23 followers, 9 posts and 4 videos. Small numbers for now, but with the growth of the project, the account would grow. Now that we have photos and images from the workshop, we have materials for future content that can draw people towards the project.

During the workshop, participants were given an opportunity to make and share the content they created. Participants shared their content on their stories which we reshared and saved as a story highlight on the profile for others to see. This builds up an archive of work that both demonstrates the themes and enables others to participate.

 

Workshop Day: Saturday 22nd of June 2024, Kingston School of Art

The workshop started with a round of introductions from the facilitators. We introduced the workshop as a work in progress and encouraged participants to feel relaxed, and communicated that their 

input was really valuable in developing the project. Thomas, Katie, and Daisy all introduced themselves and spoke about their interests and how their work is related to Digital Footprints.

The participants introduced themselves and spoke about their relationship with social media. We had a variety of experiences from people who post on a regular basis to those who are still getting to grips with how the platforms work. In this instance working with a group that had previous experience with using various social media platforms, and this added value as they were able to reflect on the past use and their current relationship with the platforms.

We started by forming a circle and framing the session as having no rights or wrongs, no preconceived ideas of what movement is or can be and no pre-set expectations. All were asked to take gentle movements in unison, finding cohesion through the body and between each other. The group was made up of people who had only just met, some who knew of each other and some who had long term friendships between them, an echo of the relationships we have online.

Taking a breath in and out together, we moved individually through the space (representing our human nature to explore, search and exchange) and then we attempted to arrive back in the circle in unison. The goal of this task was to highlight the influence on and connection we have between each other, whilst tuning into each other and evolving a safe space for what was to come.

The final movement exercise involved working with someone you did not know to mirror each other. We wanted our participants to think about:

  • -  How do they relate to each other?

  • -  How are they influenced by each other?

  • -  What do they choose to follow?

  • -  Why do we follow and how does it feel to do this?

  • -  What does it mean to be a part of something with others?

For the second session we used the ‘touch me’ device from Playtronica as a capacitive touch sensor. This is a tool Thomas uses in his practice often to generate unique sounds and visuals from audience interaction. For Digital Footprints we were interested in asking people to connect together to generate sounds via an online synth. The device used midi input to generate chords of music based on the strength of the connection between the people in the group.

The group stood in a line and the person on each end held an electrode - then together they linked hands and completed a circuit. We asked the group to physicalise a few questions around social media, using their body and the strength of the connection between the group to create a sound in response to the question.

We were really interested in how we can respond to complicated human/ technology relationships in an embodied and creative way.

Participants were given pieces of paper and a variety of pens and we asked a series of questions about their relationship to social media. The participants wrote down their responses on the paper and then at the end, some were comfortable to feedback their thoughts and reflections. This task included writing a letter to their personified social media. The participants were then asked to utilise the trays filled with sharp sand, to materialise some of their thoughts and feelings that came out of the writing exercise. What was interesting was that the participants immediately engaged with the sand, using their fingers to create patterns and then to agitate the trays to make the sand drawings disappear. Some of the participants had to share trays, but this was interesting as a simulated conversation between them.

Words participants used to describe their sand images:

  • -  Social suffocation

  • -  Lego for GEN Z and GEN Alpha

  • -  Interactions ripple out, some create waves, some disappear

    without a trace

  • -  Wet/worry/tagging

  • -  Why? With a textured background

  • -  Symbolisess disconnection in posting, sunshine and rain

    (authenticity)

  •  

The sand exercise was particularly interesting because it enabled people to express thoughts and feelings that perhaps needed a more tangible expression. Sharp sand is a limited resource and in some way symbolised the sands of time and the way drawings were erased so easily highlighted the ephemerality of our movements online. The way we post and forget or take lots of photos and don’t do anything with them.

 Content Creation Workshop

The final elements of the workshop took place in the form of a content creation session. Daisy went through a visual presentation talking about how the evolution of the web has led to an environment where everyday people use social media environments to create content, share and connect. This contextualised the space with which we operate within. The participants were briefed on how this environment is governed by powerful algorithms that take relevant content to those who are interested in the topics. Daisy then spoke about how the algorithms work and how the act of making content is a skill that requires tools, materials, patterns and a lot of practice. She demonstrated the creative content that every day people make, with mobile phones as tools in their pocket, to express creativity, tell stories and reach a niche audience.

At the end of the session, Daisy gave the participants a task of creating a piece of content using their mobile phones, that reflected on the themes of the day. She demonstrated how to make content using the tools available in the Instagram platform, and how to utilise the video editing app called CapCut.

The participants took 10 minutes to create a simple piece of content on their phones that summarised some of the themes of the day. The participants were asked to share some of the work with the group. We had a variety of content collages. One of them was created using the Instagram story feature, demonstrating a static image of the sand, portraying a number of moving snakes (that were gifs) and then little sticker symbols to represent the various social media platforms. Another was created as an Instagram Reel, portrayed a video from a conference of a robot that looks like a human. The video contained a commentary of how AI was going to take control. We then had another participant show a sophisticated AI generated video they generated using text on CapCut. The video translated the text about entropy and a sand castle into a video of a little boy, with a voice over generated to read the text.