EMERCE EDAY 
SHADOW SELVES: LIVING WITH (OR 
WITHOUT) OUR BIG DATA DOUBLES 
SCOTT SMITH 
@CHANGEIST 
STILL FROM “UNNAMED SOUNDSCULPTURE,” BY CEDRIC KIEFER AND DANIEL FRANKE 
CHANGEIST
70% of stored data—900 
exabytes, doubling annually—is 
generated by people directly. 
SOURCE:IDC/EMC 
24 HRS IN PHOTOS | ERIK KESSELS | BIG BANG DATA EXHIBITION | CCCB
HTTP://WWW.ENGADGET.COM/2012/11/12/NEC-OUTS-880-FACIAL-RECOGNITION-SYSTEM/
HTTP://WWW.AMSCREEN.EU/
Image: Flickr / Suman Park / (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
$4 trillion spent by businesses on 
IT hardware, software, people and 
services since 2005. 
“BIG DATA: SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES, 
PRESERVING VALUES | WHITE HOUSE 
IMAGE; BERALDO LEAL | FLICKR
HTTP://WWW.AMSCREEN.EU/ 
Data-driven marketing 
“added $156 billion in 
revenue to the U.S. 
economy and fueled 
more than 675,000 jobs 
in 2012 alone.” 
DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING INSTITUTE
http://missbudgetbeauty.co.uk/
Image: Flickr / Henrik Busch /(CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
ADAM BARTLETT / FLICKR
“Algorithms do not know the context of a 
photograph, they don’t understand, or pre-empt the 
consequences of their own function.” 
–NATALIE D KANE, 
“GHOST STORIES: 
DO WE KNOW WHERE OUR IMAGES END UP ONLINE?” 
MEDIUM 
JAMES BRIDLE: RENDER GHOSTS
http://www.itproportal.com/2014/04/16/aisight-the-surveillance-network-completely-run-by-ai/#ixzz2zciNYE8m
IMAGE: FLICKR / FEZ BASHARAT I A N / (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
“…it’s not possible to conceive a 
system that would let a robot 
understand hundreds of thousands 
of objects. But the cloud can have 
all that knowledge. A robot can use 
the cloud to start learning things 
about its environment. For 
example, this object is a cup and so 
I have to grab it like this…” 
-Paolo Pirjanian, CTO, iRobot 
IMAGE: FLICKR / TOD KURT / (CC BY- N C 2 . 0 )
HTTP://FORUM.LIBCINDER.ORG/TOPIC/KINECT-SDK-BLOCK
“Personalization purports to be uniquely meaningful, 
yet it alienates us in its mass application.” 
SARA M WATSON 
“DATA DOPPELGÄNGERS AND THE UNCANNY VALLEY OF PERSONALIZATION”- 
THE ATLANTIC
http://www.jamessiddle.net/boris-viz/index.html
IMAGE: HACKER NEWS
DAN WILLIAMS IN CV DAZZLE AT DCONSTRUCT 2013 | CV DAZZLE BY ADAM HARVEY  IMAGE: RAIN RABBIT, FLICKR VIA HONOR HARGER.
“Surveillant anxiety is always a conjoined twin: The 
anxiety of those surveilled is deeply connected to the 
anxiety of the surveillers.” 
— KATE CRAWFORD, 
“THE ANXIETIES OF BIG DATA” THE NEW INQUIRY
IMAGE: MIKE BOSTOCK, HTTP://BOST.OCKS.ORG/MIKE/ALGORITHMS/
THANKS TO: 
NATALIE D. KANE 
SARA WATSON 
KATE CRAWFORD 
FARIDA VIS 
JOANNE MCNEIL 
FOR THEIR INSPIRING RESEARCH IN THIS AREA.
Thank you! 
@CHANGEIST 
SSMITH@CHANGEIST.COM 
CHANGEIST.COM 
CHANGEIST

SHADOW SELVES: LIVING WITH (OR WITHOUT) OUR BIG DATA DOUBLES