In her project for Forecast, mentored by digital policy expert Francesca Bria, Brekke creates a speculative fiction around a data dashboard for an ordinary person living in posthuman times. What if people could have a say in how a given AI is trained using their data? And a say over how it is used? What if people could have real-time insight into the well-being of companion species? What if such a data dashboard could offer an understanding of how one’s actions and data affect humans and nonhumans elsewhere?
At the Forecast Forum, Brekke showed “user stories,” a software-development method used to describe what a given software needs to achieve. The simulated “users” of these posthuman dashboards, however, were developed from the perspectives of critical theorists working on the politics of data and algorithms. These user stories and initial designs will constitute the first stage in a larger immersive work, which will be shared with the public at the Forecast Festival in April. Ahead of the festival, Brekke and Bria met for a work-stay to edit and finalize the work.
