BEERBALANCE

Measuring the human body

'I agree'

Poster

Before you are able use 'I agree' you have to agree to the terms and conditions.

Have you read the terms of use? No. Have you accepted them? Yes. You probably have never thought about the possible consequences of signing a contract which you have not read. Although millions of people do it everyday, by pressing ‘I Agree’ at the end of every pop up screen of terms of and conditions you come across.

Thank you for letting us confiscate your personal freedom. By blindly accepting the terms and conditions, you have officially lost control over your rights regarding the service you are using. From this moment, your personal data are now under copyright of I agree, or any other service you agreed to use.

Congratulations, you have now exposed yourself to the whole world (wide web) to see. Your identity is now forever stored on the web. Your online ID will forever be accessible for the eyes of everyone.

Concept

We live in a digital era in which it is nearly impossible to stay anonymous. The digital world contains so many recources that are directly available. Especially the fact that the accessibility takes so little time is quite convenient. When a service has a large amount of users, it creates a feeling that the service can be used safely, and makes an individual blindly trust it. The desire to use a popular service as fast as possible in today’s time spirit, results in skipping to read the services’ terms and conditions. Besides, what harm can pressing ‘I agree’ actually cause? Somewhere in these conditions you will be protected, one would think. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know a few negative scenarios that have happened to a few unknown people. But in comparison to the fact that so many people use these services it would never happen to you. But should you really expose so much of your body, your identity, your brains, to the eyes of the whole world? The digital network and the amount of (personal) data is growing to extends we can not even imagine. And because of this unimaginable factor the awareness of our digital footprint we leave behind for eternity fades away.

With the project of ‘I agree’ we want to raise awareness about this phenomenon of blindly accepting the terms and conditions of these services, and possible consequences.

Research

'I agree' consists of a webcam attached to a long pole standing straight, with a spotlight shining in the background. A welcoming voice of a woman beckons people to come closer and asks if they will agree to see what's next. If they agree, she tells them to press the button. Pressing this button will make the webcam take your picture and spread it to multiple screens throughout the room.

Slitscan, the first prototype of taking pictures using the webcam. Using a program called 'Processing' we literally abused someone's body by deforming it: