Amazing website shows you how the Internet sees you MIT Personas Project!

August 22, 11:54 PMNY Holistic Science & Spirit ExaminerTima Vlasto

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Personas Project MIT Museum

Just enter your name at the Personas Project website and this innovative art project that is part of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab will search the web for information and with its sophisticated natural language processing will create a portrait of your online identity.

Personas shows you a prose-like, colorful and shockingly accurate visual portrait of how the Internet sees you. While the algorithm compiles your information into predetermined categories you can view the computational process at each stage of the process.

From the Personas website:

In a world where fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, the computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. Personas demonstrate the computer's uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.

From the masks of actors in ancient Greek dramas, Carl Jung’a personality constructs to marketer's “personas” user types, we can add one more “self” to the repertoire of masks we wear when facing the world. Now we know how WWW sees us.

See also:A psychological type of identity theft

Personas was created by Aaron Zinman, with help from Alex Dragulescu, Yannick Assogba and Judith Donath.

See also: Spooky lecture from 1996 prophesizes the future of the WWW and its spiritual dimension

Resources:

Metropath(ologies) is a new installation about living in a world overflowing with information and non-stop communication. The sounds and visual imagery incorporate live and recorded data ranging from personal updates and private information, to global news reports. Visitors may choose to become part of the exhibit, their images captured by surveillance cameras, their names entered into databases, their voices recorded and played back by in the echoing soundtrack.

In New York City: For free computer and internet classes

New York Public Library: Clickon@the library Free computer classes.

The Computer Resource Centers offer free computer access and instruction to New Yorkers of all ages. Search by location.New York Department of Parks and Recreation.

The New York Personal Computer User Group: Since 1981, The NYPC (non-profit) brings together computer users at all levels to share their knowledge and enjoyment of computers and computing. They have monthly general meetings that are free and open to the public and a full set of classes and workshops every month.