Playing at Technological Boundaries: Participatory Art on Algorithmic Decision-Making

Today, machine learning and predictive algorithms find patterns in large data stores and make predictions which corporations and governments use to support decision making. These systems’ representation of reality can be more important to decision-making than the complex reality they are intended to reflect. Such situations become problematic when they undermine the responsiveness and inclusivity of public decision making and when their use creates, introduces, or perpetuates social or economic inequality. To address these challenges, the general public must be able to participate in discourse about the social implications of the use of algorithmic decision-making. My research investigates how participatory art experiences might provide a context for the public to consider the impact of algorithmic decision-making on society. I created a series of participatory art installations concerning the impacts of algorithmic decision-making, providing contexts for enactive exploration of such systems. The installations were: Algorithmic Rituals, using creation to reflect on how technology habits impact interactions with others; Entanglements using narrative to contemplate how the impacts of algorithmic systems can intersect; and The Neural Network, using play to construct a collaborative neural network. I conducted phenomenographic interviews to better understand how attendees experience art installations on technical topics. The data provided insight for the installations as I developed them, and revealed how participants encountered ideas and content outside of insight for other researchers looking to support public consideration of new and challenging ideas about technology. I argue that experiencing discomfort at the boundaries of attendees’ expertise is a vital aspect of supporting the emotional capacity to respond to an evolving technological and social landscape. their expertise in the works. They pivoted from being unsure about the experience to open to the ideas they encountered. In this thesis I discuss these pivots as instances of boundary play, and provide insight for other researchers looking to support public consideration of new and challenging ideas about technology. I argue that experiencing discomfort at the boundaries of attendees’ expertise is a vital aspect of supporting the emotional capacity to respond to an evolving technological and social landscape.