This July, a new mobile app called SceneTap will further augment the hook-up scene. The app is linked to cameras in bars which count the number of patrons and based on facial features determine the average age and the male-to-female ratio. Of course, the decision to go to a particular bar (and not to go to another) effectively alters the dataset. We therefore make decisions about where to go based upon technologically transmitted data about physical bodies. The presence of our own physical bodies then become data to be recorded, transmitted, and factored into the social plans of others.
Comments 5
getting freaky « ERROR-VIZION — June 21, 2011
[...] Via Cyborgology. [...]
T. AKA Ricky Raw — June 22, 2011
That is INSANE.
replqwtil — June 28, 2011
Yeah, that is actually kinda freaky weird. One of these weird uncanny valley moments, where an app just falls between usefulness and a very uncomfortable using-ness of human beings as objects. There doesn't seem to be anything inherently wrong with the idea (other than potential privacy concerns, who has access to these cameras? How secure is that access? etc), it still remains vaguely very uncomfortable. I think due to the aforementioned objectification of the human in the dataset. We all know it's happening all the time, but for it to be so blatant is a little unnerving for me.
kaffeinator — June 29, 2011
Thanks for the post, Jenny! I recently researched and analyzed Grindr for a college term paper as a tool enabling and constraining specific formations of (queer male) identity and (queer male) identification through reference to the app itself, its economic basis, its legal framework, its advertising, its relations with other companies (such as Apple and The Daily Hookup), and the connections among these. To be brief, I asserted that Grindr was a produsage tool (or MPP- media produsage platform) that was being used as part of a specific technosocial formation. I mention all of this in the hope that you'll find this analytic helpful as a way to think about SceneTap, even if you don't agree with it. :)
I can also let you know if I decide to create an analysis of SceneTap or a related topic; given my intense interest in these mediated hookup spaces, this is rather likely.
Jenny Davis — June 29, 2011
@ Replqwtil--I can understand the uneasy feeling. Not only is this an explicit form of surveillance, but explicitly commodifies human bodies.
@Kaffeinator--Sounds really interesting. Do keep us up to date on your continued analyses.