Gijs Roest

"Big Brother likes your status"

Research

• Position

  My research is of significance to those that are interested in the ongoing developments in the field of communication and interaction design. As an editorial designer, I was taught how important the careful construction of interaction is. Whether it to sell a product, provide a web-service, choosing a type for a newspaper headline, or a presentation, the reason why you put a certain word here, and a specific picture there is crucial. Why is it then, that once we leave the realm of professional interaction, reasons and motivation become diffused so quickly? Especially on the Internet, where everyone is in charge of its own editorial process, there is a tendency to be sloppy about what is published where. Is this sloppiness, ignorance, or is it because of entirely different factors?
  
  Information is the basis for knowledge, knowledge is power and this power can be abused. An important question about the use of this power, the exchange of information, and the big influential companies that provide the infrastructure for it, is: “who watches the watchmen?” This question can be directed at the piracy-scene (downloading expensive software, movies, and music) as well. The answer is in both cases the same. Due to the nature of the Internet ecology, striving for a system that is balanced is fallacy logically; a balanced ecosystem does not sustain evolution. Since the Cloud and all the information in it, is acting like an organism, stopping its evolution would be the same as reaching a halting state: death. So how does it work?
  

• Goal

  This research and accompanying visual projects have the intention of raising awareness to the complexity of information-knowledge-conversion and -exchange. The reader is invited to an observation of the process, the workings of our filters, the ecology that is the Internet, and the behavior of the population: people, like you and me. The logic reasoning should let the reader reflect on his / her own behavior dealing with public and private information.
  

• Overview

  Section 1 and 2 provide a basic understanding of what knowledge and information are. What our incentive is to acquire knowledge and how the Internet (r)evolves around the central principle ‘knowledge is power’. Section 3 and 4 explain how the individual, the ‘self’ is moving towards ‘we’ or ‘us’ as a result of the evolving standards in the Cloud (defined in section 1). Section 5 defines the individual ‘self’ as it exists in the Cloud: our digital identity and touches on the subject of privacy in section 6. Section 7 summarizes the content and discusses unanswered question. The conclusion is an exhibition of the interactions we engage in.
  
  • Introduction
  • 1. Knowledge is power
  • 2. Information filters
  • 3. New standards
  • 4. Personal information
  • 5. Digital identity
  • 6. Privacy
  • 7. Summarizing
  • 8. Conclusion

About

• Me

  Gijs Bert Roest was born 10th of May 1983 in Delft, The Netherlands. His greatest curse and blessing is his imagination. He is a creator, an inventor.
  He developed a very strong affection for illustration, digital art, and games. The latter eventually let him to study Computer Science at the Faculty of Polytechnics in Groningen and work at a game company.
  
  After graduation he entered the University of Groningen and got the role of scientific programmer concerned with business modeling and simulation in the Agent Laboratory. His tasks made him actively participate in writing papers from journals to workshop, visiting conferences all over the world.
  
  After a couple of years of creative drought, he decided to go to Utrecht and follow the Editorial Design master program at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (HKU). Consequently, MindStorm Design was started as his freelance design job somewhere along the way.
  
  He is now somewhere on the Internet, in the Cloud, working on data visualization, artificial intelligence, games, interaction, behavior, applying other digital media to text, illustration, animation, and film. If you ever come across him, tell him to take some rest.
  
  

• Contact

  telephone: + 31 6 24 11 65 66
  e-mail: mindstorm [at] gijsroest [dot] nl
  website: http://www.gijsroest.nl/ (under contruction)