Conspiracy Atrophy: The disease of social networks
2022
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Reactive Data visualisation
Hoaxes, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Many institutions also rely on social media to report on unexpected events or disasters. Many times, bystanders post about what is happening, resulting in information on social media being faster and "richer" than official news. Due to emotions, helplessness or misunderstanding, they are often inflated, contrived but not infrequently deliberately fabricated. We are exposed to the impact of social media day in and day out. But can we filter the relevant and true information from the false or irrelevant?
In my work, I dealt with the visualization of MRI data from 2D images in DICOM and NIfTI format followed by conversion and reconstruction into a 3D model. This involved roughly 5100 images. In the second part, I worked with the created 3D model.
The brain was reconstructed using two tools that are otherwise used for medical purposes. The original 2D MRI images were recorded for 100 hours through a 7-Tesla MRI Scanner. This was the brain of a 58-year-old woman, with no history of neurological disease, who donated her brain for research.
I used TouchDesigner software to try to generate holes in the 3D model using the filtered information, illustrating a kind of "rubbernecking" of the brain, which can be likened to uncritically exposing oneself to conspiracy theories and misinformation. The holes are created through voice input, i.e. voice-over microphone. I took the conspiracy theory data from the Reddit Conspiracy Theory dataset. These are conspiracy theories collected on Reddit. The luminous moving effect on the rotating brain shows neurotransmitters - receiving information.
The main inspiration was Alzheimer's disease, which causes irreversible changes in brain structures and loss of brain matter. And also David McCandless' data visualization, which shows waves of global panic triggered by media amplification of feared topics.A test model is used in the video because these were voluminous files and high performance is required to process the project.
Hoaxes, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Many institutions also rely on social media to report on unexpected events or disasters. Many times, bystanders post about what is happening, resulting in information on social media being faster and "richer" than official news. Due to emotions, helplessness or misunderstanding, they are often inflated, contrived but not infrequently deliberately fabricated. We are exposed to the impact of social media day in and day out. But can we filter the relevant and true information from the false or irrelevant?
In my work, I dealt with the visualization of MRI data from 2D images in DICOM and NIfTI format followed by conversion and reconstruction into a 3D model. This involved roughly 5100 images. In the second part, I worked with the created 3D model.
The brain was reconstructed using two tools that are otherwise used for medical purposes. The original 2D MRI images were recorded for 100 hours through a 7-Tesla MRI Scanner. This was the brain of a 58-year-old woman, with no history of neurological disease, who donated her brain for research.
I used TouchDesigner software to try to generate holes in the 3D model using the filtered information, illustrating a kind of "rubbernecking" of the brain, which can be likened to uncritically exposing oneself to conspiracy theories and misinformation. The holes are created through voice input, i.e. voice-over microphone. I took the conspiracy theory data from the Reddit Conspiracy Theory dataset. These are conspiracy theories collected on Reddit. The luminous moving effect on the rotating brain shows neurotransmitters - receiving information.
The main inspiration was Alzheimer's disease, which causes irreversible changes in brain structures and loss of brain matter. And also David McCandless' data visualization, which shows waves of global panic triggered by media amplification of feared topics.A test model is used in the video because these were voluminous files and high performance is required to process the project.