Bryan Ma
—Definitions ∕
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Definitions attempts to model the role of computational language recognition networks in the commodification of human-generated data. It utilizes the ability of computers to comprehend semantic meaning via "common-sense networks" to represent the socio-cultural effects of natural language processing. The increasing ability of computers to understand language seems to suggest that a fundamentally intangible aspect of human experience has the capacity to be sorted, rationalized, manipulated, or commoditized. Humanistic goals that such technological progress has the capacity to fulfill notwithstanding, predominant societal paradigms like globalized capitalism remain capable of co-opting such gains to their own ends.
My practice draws from my background in commercial videogame production, creative technology, interaction design, humanities, media studies, and philosophy. I am drawn to procedural aesthetics, playful systems and absurdity, critical and speculative interactions, and the phenomena of digital representation, and tend to be interested in the ambiguous over the prescriptive. My work largely comes out of a process of systematic formal experimentation.
