For the last iteration of Profiling, Kameelah Janan Rasheed looks directly at algorithms and in this iteration exposes the set of calculations that determinates the results.
Algorithmic Book Composition is a designed interactive website that offers participants a series of algorithms to determine their book object’s design, form, content and distribution. At times individualized based on identity traits and others by chance, determination prompts create a customized output designed just for you. Algorithms are a process or rules for calculations or other problem-solving operations. Algorithms can also be considered scores, constraints, invitations or prompts. Rasheed takes on the form of algorithms to expose how our identity is morphed and formed through a series of prompts to determine a set digital output, forcing you to consider how you answer. Are you answering truthfully? Are your answers based on a desired output?
About the Artist
A learner, Kameelah Janan Rasheed explores Black knowledge production and fugitivity. Her recent solo exhibitions include REDCAT (2024), KW Institute of Contemporary Art (2023), Art Institute of Chicago (2023), and Kunstverein Hannover (2022). Rasheed is the author of five artists’ books: in the coherence, we weep (KW Institute, 2023); i am not done yet (Mousse Publishing, 2022); An Alphabetical Accumulation of Approximate Observations (Endless Editions, 2019); No New Theories (Printed Matter, 2019); and the digital publication Scoring the Stacks (Brooklyn Public Library, 2021).
Profiling
This summer, we invite you to join us for our remote summer series, Profiling, which will present five artist-designed questionnaires or forms that reconsider how we present ourselves through online profiles, or how the data we input shapes our identity.
Online profiles have been folded into the fabric of our identities, but can we take a step back and reconsider the information we are asked to provide that construct our online digital selves? Alternatively, can we analyze the forms and questionnaires that structure the way we are forced to identify ourselves? These profiles have increasingly become a way of establishing interpersonal relationships. We are forced to fit ourselves into a persona that shapes how we interact and are perceived by others. We check boxes that limit our personality and are thus placed into a category that we might not even identify with. In this series, artists will take a deeper look at the structures that collect data that inform our profiles, rethink what shapes our identities, and expose how the data being collected is used by these invisible entities.
A new iteration will be released on the List Center website every other Wednesday, from June 26 – August 21, 2024. Participants are invited to engage with the series asynchronously throughout the season.
Profiling is organized by Emily Garner, Senior Manager Campus and Public Programs, with Cassidy Westjohn, Program Coordinator.
Participating Artists: Lauren Lee McCarthy, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Mary Stephanson, Mariam Suhail, Anne Le Troter.