Decline All
“Decline all” was commissioned by Baltan Laboratories as a part of an artist residency for their program “Object in Residence”. Throughout intensive research, the conduction of a workshop and the making of an object I took a deep look at the hidden world of web-based tracking.
My interest in third-party cookies was first sparked when I read Googles announcement last year, promising the deprecation of third-party cookies in their browser, Chrome. An announcement that was revoked in July, revealing that the industry behind digital marketing does not approve of Google’s proposed alternatives. This delay does not mark a reprieve but rather underscores the complexity and uncertainty of phasing out deeply entrenched technologies. As digital ecosystems evolve, the tension between innovation and legacy systems becomes more apparent. Decline All taps into this liminal space—between the persistence of old technologies and their inevitable obsolescence and tries to create a space for them in public consciousness that goes beyond theoretical knowledge and taps into the imaginative. The object features a plate made from glass, electronics, and plastics—core materials that constitute the internet's physical infrastructure. Inside, a web crawler collects third-party cookies and converts the data into binary code that is made visible through light impulses. These immersive patterns are both drawing the visitor in, and creating a feeling of unease since their contents remain impossible to decipher. This refers to the innate nature of tracking-cookies that, while often referred to as a “better tracking technology” due to their presence in the browser-console never reveal the nature of the content that they are saving about the user. The work was exhibited at ARS Electronica Festival 2024 and will be shown next in Eindhoven January 2025.
“Decline all” was commissioned by Baltan Laboratories as a part of an artist residency for their program “Object in Residence”. Throughout intensive research, the conduction of a workshop and the making of an object I took a deep look at the hidden world of web-based tracking.
My interest in third-party cookies was first sparked when I read Googles announcement last year, promising the deprecation of third-party cookies in their browser, Chrome. An announcement that was revoked in July, revealing that the industry behind digital marketing does not approve of Google’s proposed alternatives. This delay does not mark a reprieve but rather underscores the complexity and uncertainty of phasing out deeply entrenched technologies. As digital ecosystems evolve, the tension between innovation and legacy systems becomes more apparent. Decline All taps into this liminal space—between the persistence of old technologies and their inevitable obsolescence and tries to create a space for them in public consciousness that goes beyond theoretical knowledge and taps into the imaginative. The object features a plate made from glass, electronics, and plastics—core materials that constitute the internet's physical infrastructure. Inside, a web crawler collects third-party cookies and converts the data into binary code that is made visible through light impulses. These immersive patterns are both drawing the visitor in, and creating a feeling of unease since their contents remain impossible to decipher. This refers to the innate nature of tracking-cookies that, while often referred to as a “better tracking technology” due to their presence in the browser-console never reveal the nature of the content that they are saving about the user. The work was exhibited at ARS Electronica Festival 2024 and will be shown next in Eindhoven January 2025.
