The Great Algorithm

The work of US-based artist and programmer Ben Grosser has defined, revealed, and defused how software activates the desire for more, as it follows the growth-obsessed corporate culture of Silicon Valley. His latest project – presented at Aksioma Project Space – is the outcome of a new experiment that aims to generate “Software for Less": less profit, less data, and fewer users. It offers users new tools to resist these tendencies and keep their agency in the digital era: a time when automated software systems increasingly take over every aspect of human existence, pushing users to develop new tactics of resistance. In her essay, art historian and curator Valentina Tanni discusses many of these spontaneous tactics to cheat the Great Algorithm used by social networks: some of these aim to reach better visibility, others to hide, some to invent a new language, others to exploit entropy. However weak and sparse, they represent a genuine and creative form of everyday survival.