Not For You but For Them: Defusing and Reconfiguring TikTok’s Distortions of Time and Memory
Why do we lose track of time when browsing TikTok’s For You page? What’s happening when users slip into a near trance state as they flip through TikTok’s endless video feed? Who most benefits from the argument that TikTok’s AI algorithm really gets you, sees you, knows you?
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This workshop, led by artist and guest researcher Ben Grosser, will challenge the prevailing mythologies about TikTok’s famed algorithmic feed.
After a short presentation by CDN’s Marianne Gunderson on her work investigating how TikTok users speak about and feel seen by the algorithm, the event will proceed through theoretical foundations and an overview of Grosser’s related projects.
Then attendees will engage in the most unusual of activities: 40 minutes of deliberate, purposeful, and skip-free watching of each and every video on their TikTok feed. This act of careful looking will defuse some of the app’s most pernicious effects so that the group can collectively examine just what TikTok really shows us and how the interface’s design intentionally shapes our perception of the feed. Each video watched will also serve as subjects for the composition of short textual responses based on a series of prompts.
These texts will be collected and woven into an app-based artwork that (re)presents TikTok in a novel context, a project that employs the tactic of interface reduction to help others see and feel anew what TikTok is and how it works.