Made To Measure
A crossmedia project by Laokoon
2021
Creative Producer
Made To Measure is a creative and investigative data experiment that includes a storytelling website as well as a TV documentary. Laokoon is an artists collective that consists of Cosima Terrasse, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck. They develop essays, documentaries, theatre productions, lecture performances and radio plays. The group's work revolves around the question of how our idea of man and society is changing in the digital age.
For their investigative-artistic data experiment MADE TO MEASURE the group Laokoon creates the doppelganger of a person unknown to them based solely on their personal online data. Five years of this person's life were reconstructed and filmed in detail on a large theatre stage. A few months later, the original and her datafied double met. The spectacular experiment becomes tangible on an interactive storytelling website, where visitors can experience what conclusions can be drawn about a person's character, psychology and future behavior though algorithms. Laokoon exploits the potential of digital storytelling and invents a novel and complex narrative form about and through the internet.
The one-of-a-kind cross-media project MADE TO MEASURE also includes a TV documentary that uses concrete examples to illustrate how online companies, advertisers and other data traders use the information they collect to profit from peoples’ weaknesses, insecurities, illnesses and addiction potential. Several experts, such as a former Google marketer, an expert for psychological targeting, a former Youtube developer, a psychologist, as well as data analysts, privacy activists, journalists and philosophers, shed light on the mechanisms of online advertising and personalized content on video and social media platforms.
But couldn't behavioural data also be used for the benefit of humanity? What forms of manipulation do we think of as socially acceptable or even desirable? MADE TO MEASURE allows visitors to experience in an impressive way how far-reaching the insights into our inner lives and our most intimate secrets are, which we grant Google, Facebook & Co. every day. And it poses the big philosophical question: Does the idea of individual autonomy become obsolete in the digital age? Who determines who we are and who we think we are?
Made To Measure was initiated and developed by the group Laokoon and the German Federal Cultural Foundation; in co-production with WDR, SRG SSR, rbb, Docmine, and OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media; implemented in cooperation with PACT Zollverein (Essen); with the kind support of Kulturhaus Brotfabrik, vorAnker and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna as well as S+T+ARTS in Motion.
Credits:
Special thanks are owed to the participant of the experiment for their openness, their bravery, and their trust.
DRAMA (REENACTMENT)
Nathalie Ann Köbli
PRODUCTION, SCRIPT, DIRECTING, EDITING, PRODUCTION DESIGN
Cosima Terrasse, Moritz Riesewieck, Hans Block (Gruppe Laokoon)
CO-INITIATOR
Jeanne Bindernagel (Kulturstiftung des Bundes)
WEB-DESIGN, AND -DEVELOPMENT
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Konrad Waldmann
MUSIC
Lukas McNally
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT
Lea Helen Hepe
CREATIVE PRODUCER
Nina Hölzl
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR POST-PRODUCTION
Tobias Heinze
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
Clara Hirschmanner
POST-PRODUCTION AUDIO & VIDEO
Studio Mitte Berlin
PRESS AND PR