Vadlan Joler is interested in exploring what he calls the invisible infrastructure of the Internet. Together with a multidisciplinary team that includes experts on Internet forensics and data visualization from the Share Lab –a project he runs in Serbia– he has conducted research on the reach and impact of Facebook’s data collection backbone.

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In the show, selected black and white prints from the many digital graphics conforming to his study shed light on the potential use and misuse of the 1.6 billion Facebook users’ data (likes, profession, friends, associations, etc.) that the company collects. By combining numbers and facts with methods of investigative journalism and critical media theory, the research reveals potential destinations of this information –in his own words, it “maps how our behavior is transformed into profit.”

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Considered the most comprehensive of its kind so far, Joler’s project feeds the discussion on the need for algorithmic transparency – ie. the access and power of decision of users on the governing Internet rules and behaviors. As a professor of New Media at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia, Vladan brings the conversation to an academic setting where the discussion expands from cyber activism, economy and privacy to the social, political and environmental implications of this phenomenon.

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