Czy to naprawdę ja? Artystów gry z tożsamością algorytmiczną
Is It Really Myself? Artists Playing with Algorithmic Identity

Summary/Abstract: The article examines examples of artistic activities in which the problem of digitizationof identity in the era of social media is critically addressed. Algorithmic data processing and thuscreating a virtual shadow, the digital selves of users, are the key practices of surveillance capi-talism. Therefore, to provide context to the analysis of works of three artists (Erica Sourti, AramBartholl, Timo Toots) a short overview of the evolution of the concept and practices of social mediais introduced. From the very beginning, the key place in the concept of Web 2.0 and socialmedia was assigned to the user, understood as an active agent, who autonomously creates and con-trols his/her position on the Internet. As economic and cultural hegemony of platforms increased,the gap between the ideology of active prosumers and practices resulting in the objectification,commodification and incapacitation of users became increasingly clear. A special role in this pro-cess is played by user profiling and the creation of digital identities that are useful from the point ofview of corporations. By investigating the mechanisms of algorithmic power and its consequencesfor the status of users involved in online power relations, Scourti, Bartholl and Toots pose a numberof questions crucial for understanding of contemporary culture dominated by social media moguls.What are the relationships between the embodied subject and his/her digital self? How does thedigital re-creation of the subject influence the existential possibilities of users, their self-awarenessand possibilities for self-governance? What are the consequences of commercial user profiling forunderstanding the very category of self? How can users influence the production and presence ofdigital identities? Is individual and social resistance to the instrumental power of surveillance cap-italism possible? If so, what forms might it take?

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