Data Bending

Data Bending: Opening a file in one type of program designed to open another kind of file

What type of file is my body? My soul? It feels like "uploading" myself to any website or platform is data bending especially on platforms only meant to accommodate and see whiteness. Each upload is a glitch waiting to happen.

        .         _  .          .          .    +     .          .          .      .
          .(_)          .            .            .            .       :
          .   .      .    .     .     .    .      .   .      . .  .  -+-        .
            .           .   .        .           .          /         :  .
      . .        .  .      /.   .      .    .     .     .  / .      . ' .
          .  +       .    /     .          .          .   /      .
         .            .  /         .            .        *   .         .     .
        .   .      .    *     .     .    .      .   .       .  .
            .           .           .           .           .         +  .
    . .        .  .       .   .      .    .     .     .    .      .   .

   .   +      .          ___/\_._/~~\_...__/\__.._._/~\        .         .   .
         .          _.--'                              `--./\          .   .
             /~~\/~\                                         `-/~\_            .
   .      .-'                                                      `-/\_
    _/\.-'                                                          __/~\/\-.__
  .'                                                                           `.dp

Gaze Makes the Glitch

twitter screenshots

There's something about a gaze that causes my body to glitch

There's something bout the white gaze that causes my body to glitch

There's something about non-consensual consumption by those who gaze without care

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

What software was made with black people in mind?

barbed wire chord

Always Uploading...

loading gif
hex code of image

This is a selfie, a representation of my body, as a hex code. Just numbers and ASCII characters. I'm existing in the American Standard Code for Information. What's the American Standard Code for blackness? How is blackness coded on our computers and in society?

What sound does my body (data?) make

  ,     ,
    (\____/)
     (_oo_)
       (O)
     __||__    \)
  []/______\[] /
  / \______/ \/
 /    /__\
(\   /____\

I saved my selfie as raw data and imported that into Audacity, an open source audio editor. I wanted to explore the sound of data, engage in listening to what the computer thinks my numbers sound like.

They glitched my ancestral archives + lineage to death. Glitched beyond repair.

Questions for those who will listen

  • What does it mean to be uploaded?
  • What happens to the black body when this occurs?
  • What does the everyday glitching process look like?
The Master and Slave narrative is embedded into our hardware. When my self, is translated into pixels, into code, they become part of this framework, one that also seems to mimic the current world as I know it. The perpetual gaze exists regardless of where I turn. If reality is based off our projections, to be uploaded offers the opportunity to be newly projected. This time on a white screen. Continuous disembodied projections. What happens to my body after it is translated. After it is embedded into a system. After I no longer own it. After it is accessible to all. In middle school and high school, I uploaded photos of myself to Facebook, as a way to feel closer to myself and others. It was a ritual to do so, a new album every year. An opportunity to share my life. But this life, was compressed into numbers, and now used for surveillance. Now, the Master wants me to mimic my pixels, pixels taken from images, taken from life. There is no hope in this abstraction. Only room for the Master's Projection. An opportunity for those in power to project, mold, and create whatever reality they desire. A reality, that I somehow, am a part of, even if it is through death.

In conclusion, give me my fuckin body back. My body don't have no creative commons license.