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Alibabaum Sortium
Others
(Multimedia installation: audio track and collection of paper objects. 2018)
The Alibaba and Aliexpress search bars are the gateway to the thousands items sold by Chinese factories and resellers. Algorithms control when, how many times and in which order the searched products appear on visitors screens. By looking at the Ali platform like naturalists, we approached the digital platforms like ecosystems. We analysed several algorithms, narrowing in on the sorting algorithm and renaming it: Alibabaum Sortium. In the process of exploring this, we were drawn to specific products on Alibaba whose physical existence is a source of doubt: it is unclear whether they occur as purchasable items or if their role is to entertain customers and keep them browsing through Alibaba’s interface. Alibabaum Sortium is a collection of object simulations, in paper, of what Alibaba claims are its most desired products. The other side of the reconstructed objects is printed with the metadata that writes their existence into the digital world while we can hear the algorithm itself talking about it's job as a sorting program.
The Alibaba and Aliexpress search bars are the gateway to the thousands items sold by Chinese factories and resellers. Algorithms control when, how many times and in which order the searched products appear on visitors screens. By looking at the Ali platform like naturalists, we approached the digital platforms like ecosystems. We analysed several algorithms, narrowing in on the sorting algorithm and renaming it: Alibabaum Sortium. In the process of exploring this, we were drawn to specific products on Alibaba whose physical existence is a source of doubt: it is unclear whether they occur as purchasable items or if their role is to entertain customers and keep them browsing through Alibaba’s interface. Alibabaum Sortium is a collection of object simulations, in paper, of what Alibaba claims are its most desired products. The other side of the reconstructed objects is printed with the metadata that writes their existence into the digital world while we can hear the algorithm itself talking about it's job as a sorting program.
