Sensible Data

Martin Hertig won the ECAL’s Award of Excellence with a project that explore the issues of “confidence” surrounding data collection systems: fun in exchange for personal data.

Sensible Data is an interactive installation consisting of three machines that invite to create a passport from your personal data.

Take a picture of yourself and a machine will draw your portrait. Send an email and an algorithm will judge your mood, age, gender and beauty. By pressing a dubious button, you can get a nice confirmation stamp.

This project allowed Martin Hertig to explore the issues of “confidence” surrounding data collection systems: fun in exchange for personal data. After having completed the playful process, the user receives also an email from the installation, sending him all the data of a previous user (fingerprint, photo and email) without the previous users knowledge. The three machines are modified versions of Piccolo CNC, an open-source drawing machine based on Arduino. A Raspberry Pi serves as the brain of the installation, running a python script for each step of the process. Each script listens to the desired input and sends the plotting commands to the needed machine.

Martin Hertig, Sensible Data
Martin Hertig, Sensible Data
Martin Hertig, Sensible Data
Martin Hertig, Sensible Data
Martin Hertig, Sensible Data