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I'm an artist and an engineer,

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and lately I've been thinking a lot

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about how technology mediates[br]the way we perceive reality.

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And it's being done in a super-invisible

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and nuanced way.

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Technology is designed[br]to shape our sense of reality

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by masking itself as[br]the actual experience of the world.

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As a result, we are becoming[br]unconscious and unaware

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that it is happening at all.

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Take the glasses[br]I usually wear, for example.

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These have become part of the way[br]I ordinarily experience my surroundings.

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I barely notice them,

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even though they are constantly[br]framing reality for me.

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The technology I am talking about[br]is designed to do the same thing:

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change what we see and think,

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but go unnoticed.

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Now, the only time I do notice my glasses

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is when something happens[br]to draw my attention to it,

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like when it gets dirty[br]or my prescription changes.

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So I ask myself, as an artist,

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what can I create to draw[br]the same kind of attention

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to the ways digital media

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like news organization,[br]social media platforms,

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advertising and search engines,

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are shaping our reality?

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So I created a series[br]of perceptual machines

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to help us defamiliarize and question

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the ways we see the world.

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For example, nowadays, many of us[br]have this kind of allergic reaction

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to ideas that are different from ours.

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We may not even realize that we've[br]developed this kind of mental allergy.

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So I created a helmet that creates[br]this artificial allergy to the color red.

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It simulates this hypersensitivity

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by making red things look bigger[br]when you are wearing it.

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It has two modes: nocebo and placebo.

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In nocebo mode, it creates this[br]sensorial experience of hyper-allergy.

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Whenever I see red, the red expands.

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It's similar to social media's[br]amplification effect,

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like when you look at something[br]that bothers you,

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you tend to stick with like-minded people

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and exchange messages and memes[br]and it will become even more angry.

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Sometimes, a trivial discussion

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gets amplified and blown[br]way out of proportion.

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Maybe that's even why[br]we are living in the politics of anger.

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In placebo mode, it's[br]an artificial cure for this allergy.

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Whenever you see red, the red shrinks.

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It's a palliative, like in digital media.

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When you encounter people[br]with different opinions,

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we will unfollow them,

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remove them completely out of your feeds.

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It cures this allergy by avoiding it.

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But this way of intentionally[br]ignoring opposing ideas

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makes human community[br]hyper-fragmented and separated.

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The device inside the helmet[br]reshapes reality

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and projects into our eyes[br]through a set of lenses

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to create and augmented reality.

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I picked the color red

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because it's intense and emotional,

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it has high visibility,

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and it's political.

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So what if we take a look[br]at the last American presidential map

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through the helmet.

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(Laughter)

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You can see that it doesn't matter[br]if you're a Democrat or a Republican,

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because the mediation[br]alters our perceptions.

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The allergy exists on both sides.

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In digital media, what we see every day

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is often mediated,

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but it's also very nuanced.

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If we are not aware of this,

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we will keep being vulnerable[br]to many kinds of mental allergies.

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Our perception is not only[br]part of our identities,

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but in digital media, it's also[br]a part of the value chain.

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Our visual field is packed[br]with so much information

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that our perception has become[br]a commodity with real estate value.

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Designs are used to exploit[br]our unconscious biases,

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algorithms favor content[br]that reaffirms our opinions,

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so that every little corner[br]of our field of view is being colonized

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to sell ads.

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Like, when this little red dot[br]comes out in your notifications,

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it grows and expands[br]and to your mind, it's huge.

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So I started to think of ways[br]to put a little dirt,

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or change the lenses of my glasses,

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and came up with another project.

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Now, keep in mind this is conceptual.[br]It's not a real product.

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It's a web browser plugin

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that could help us to notice[br]the things that we would usually ignore.

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Like the helmet,[br]the plugin reshapes reality,

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but this time directly[br]into the digital media itself.

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It shouts the hidden filtered voices.

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What you should be noticing now

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will be bigger and vibrant,

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like here, this story about gender bias[br]emerging from the sea of cats.

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(Laughter)

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The plugin could dilute the things[br]that are being amplified by an algorithm.

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Like, here in this comment section,

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there are lots of people shouting[br]about the same opinions.

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The plugin makes[br]their comments super-small.

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So now the amount of pixel presence[br]they have on the screen

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is proportional to the actual value[br]they are contributing to the conversation.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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The plugin also shows the real estate[br]value of our visual field,

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and how much of our perception[br]is being commoditized.

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Different from ad blockers,

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for every ad you see on the webpage,

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it shows the amount of money[br]you should be earning.

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(Laughter)

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We are living in a battlefield

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between reality and commercial[br]distributive reality,

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so the next version of the plugin[br]could strike away that commercial reality

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and show you things are they really are.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Well, you can imagine how many directions[br]this could really go.

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Believe me, I know the risks are high[br]if this were to become a real product,

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and I created this with good intentions

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to train our perception[br]and eliminate biases.

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But the same approach[br]could be used with bad intentions,

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like forcing citizens to install a plugin[br]like that to control the public narrative.

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It's challenging to make it[br]fair and personal

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without it just becoming[br]another layer of mediation.

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So what does all this mean for us?

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Even though technology[br]is creating this isolation,

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we could use it to make[br]the world connected again

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by breaking the existing model[br]and going beyond it.

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By exploring how we interface[br]with these technologies,

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we could step out of our habitual,[br]almost machine-like behavior

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and finally find common ground[br]between each other.

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Technology is never neutral.

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It provides a context and frames reality.

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It's part of the problem[br]and part of the solution.

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We could use it to uncover our blind spots[br]and retrain our perception,

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and consequently choose[br]how we see each other.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)