Big Tech Says Sorry
Big Tech Says Sorry is a suite of projects that explore the relationships between technology, affect, authenticity and reception. These projects have started the process of mining and interrogating these connections through a focus on the act of apology, the performance of contrition, and the chasm that exists between action and intent.
My work on these projects stems from a personal interest in the ways in which technology companies are (and are not) held accountable in a time where they not only exercise a large amount of control over our day to day lives, but also seem to face no substantive repercussions for mistakes, lapses in judgment, and outright bad behavior. The apologies that these companies issue in the wake of data breaches, human relations scandals, and other violations often feel fake and manufactured, and signal that the real purpose of this messaging is not to accept responsibility for their actions and inquire as to what they can do better, but instead to smooth things over and return to the status quo as quickly as possible. Big Tech Says Sorry mines this gap in understanding and explores what happens when "authentic" expressions of regret are not read as such, and what needs to happen in order to read sincerity in expressions of apology.
The projects currently consist of: a web browser extension, currently functional in Google Chrome, which delivers direct apologies to users for technology companies by interrupting their uses of these systems; a collection of prints and linked webpages, meant to be wheatpasted in public spaces near or adjacent to the headquarters of big technology companies in prominent United States locations such as San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City, which frame the companies' actions in language that more directly acknowledges their own culpability for their behavior; and a series of workshops and performances which experiment with language, delivery, and social context.
Big Tech Says Sorry was begun during the Performance Intensive in Philadelphia during January 2020. Special thanks to Sharon Hayes, Brooke O'Harra, Steven Feld, and the members of the Fall 2020 Anthromedialities class at the University of Pennsylvania.