Listening Back
"..if you enjoy the wobbly psychedelic synth of Boards of Canada you might like listening to the onslaught of cookies but if, like me, you have both AdBlock and Privacy Badger installed on your browser then you will begin to worry about how many of these third-party cookies they are managing to catch and block." --- Listen to the Cookies Following You around on the Web. Web Log: Chrome and Firefox Plugin Reveals Level at Which Cookies Are Tracking Us Online, Marie Boran, The Irish Times.
LISTENING BACK Browser Add-On Demonstration
Listening Back is a sounding and listening practice, a Web browser add-on, and a research into the potential of sound to engage contemporary socio-political contexts, in particular - algorithmic surveillance.The Listening Back browser add-on sonifies Internet cookies in real-time and has been enacted across live performance, installation, and personal computer usage. By providing situations to listen back to cookie data within the real-time dynamics of Web browsing, the affective, embodying, time-based, omni-directional and experiential affordances of sound are engaged, not primarily as an object of study but as a means of creative inquiry.
Installation view: TRAFO, Szczecin (PL), October 2023. 8 active speakers, 1 subwoofer, 4 projectors, 4 computers, Listening Back Chrome Browser Add-On, Cookie data, Wi-Fi.
Installation view: TRAFO, Szczecin (PL), October 2023.
Focused on the commercial online environment of networks of extractive algorithmic data capture the Listening Back Web browser add-on was developed for the Firefox and Chrome Web browsers. By sonifying cookies in real-time it provides a sounding approach to experiencing how its monitoring operations are continually and ubiquitously taking place. By sonically signaling their situatedness within the Web browsing context, alternate Web spaces are facilitated to consider the politics of being continually tracked while browsing the Web.
Installation view: TRAFO, Szczecin (PL), October 2023.
Installation view: TRAFO, Szczecin (PL), October 2023.
Installation & Interview, TRAFO, Szczecin (PL) November 2023
According to the most extensive online index of “pre-categorised cookies”, in March 2023, 41,871,530 cookies circulated across the World Wide Web and personal computing devices of which one percent were identified as ‘strictly necessary’.(https://cookiepedia.co.uk/. Considering the extraordinary amount of cookies tracking us across the Web it was impossible to create a unique sound for each one. I therefore created signature sounds for major web domains such as google, youtube, facebook, amazon, flight search engines, news sites and some of the third party cookies that are prevalent across the Web and our personal computing devices.
Interface
The Listening Back interface, initially developed for live performance, enables users to individually adapt settings for long-term usage and diagnostic and exploratory listening. Personal usage sonically situates the listener within the surveillant networks of their own browsing. In these intimate situations the sonic interruption of everyday browsing, effects an individual experience of being continually and ubiquitously tracked by the ever-evolving cookiesphere.
Anyone can download it from the Chrome or Mozilla Web stores to use with the Chrome or Firefox browser!
Browser Duo - Black Box, University of NSW, Sydney
In live performances with the browser ensemble, the act of Web browsing is amplified and enlarged via video projections and multi-channel sound systems as a means to increase appreciations of the ubiquity and pervasiveness of Web surveillance. These enveloping sensory environments facilitate alternate Web spaces to consider the normalisation of Web surveillance through critical and bodily felt encounters with abstract data flows.
Presentation of Listening Back at 36C3, Leipzig (DE)
Installation view: Tributary, Gorman Arts Centre, Canberra, Australia, March 2023 8 Genelec 8020D speakers, 1 subwoofer, 2 projectors, 2 computers, Listening Back Chrome Browser Add-On, Cookie data, Wi-Fi.
Installation view: Tributary, Gorman Arts Centre, Canberra, Australia, March 2023
Installation view: Tributary, Gorman Arts Centre, Canberra, Australia, March 2023