Leah
Willemin


Design +
Creative Technology


About

Leah Willemin
Design + Creative Technology
MFADT Thesis, 2019

body double


This project addresses the quantification of the body. I’ve researched the way data collection permeates contemporary life, and investigated the way predictive feedback and personalized services create feedback loops that shape identity. I ask, what might I become? How will my future self be delineated by the way I have been digitized, and my information commodified? Like familiar physical settings, the digital familiar becomes a trusted part of a person’s identity. I argue that just as manipulation of a person’s familiar physical space profoundly un-makes identity, the manipulation of the digital familiar betrays and destabilizes identity.

I have created a durational performance that represents these concepts. Over the course of six hours, I re-perform auto-suggested YouTube and Instagram videos. I developed a program to capture both my gestures and gestures from the videos, and live-3D print the juxtaposed motions throughout the course of the performance.

Thesis Writing (PDF)

Symposium Paper (PDF)