You might already know this month’s Hmmterviewee from our Make your own slobject workshops; Maria Mombers is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work investigates the increasingly blurred boundary between lived experience and constructed realities, with a keen focus on the commodification of attention and the influence of e-commerce in digital spaces.
Her latest project, You May Also Like, positions the slot machine as a blueprint for the dopamine-driven relationship between humans and machines and explores the reward feedback loops that shape our society. Stylised as an infinite scroll, it invites you to step into the āmachine zoneā, a term used to describe the state of slot-machine gamblers who lose all sense of time and physical presence, fully absorbed in their game. You May Also Like is Mariaās graduation project from KABK and will soon be on display at GOGBOT Festival in Enschede.
Below is the full conversation, unabridged.
1. How many browser tabs do you have open right now?
Atm 7, but today my open browser tabs have been varying between 3 and 25. I just came back from a two week vacation so itās mostly catching up on work.
2. What’s the most ridiculous rabbit hole you’ve ever fallen down on the internet?
Theme park haunted houses! Iāve never attended a Fright Night, but it happens quite often that I catch the flu in October, and being sick in bed comes with a lot of screen time. Around Halloween, my social media feed gets flooded with haunted house sneak peeks ā each one with its own lore, characters, ratings, and dedicated fandom.
3. What’s your favourite place on the internet?
Iām always down for a good bargain hunt so I spend a lot of time on platforms like Vinted and Marktplaats. I also always have @corecorecc radio open in a tab while browsing or working.
4. What’s the weirdest thing an algorithm has recommended to you?
Quicksand content.
5. Which meme would best summarise your online personality?
6. If your scroll history or likes were to become one physical object, what would it look like?
The Brave Little Toaster.
7. What do your own data traces get wrong about you, and what do they get uncomfortably right?
That I like AI slop content. Iām doing a lot of research into the slopification of the internet, so my timeline is constantly flooded with crap that I really dislike. But it also helps me keep up with whatās going on, so I guess itās a never-ending cycle. One time, I was having an internal crisis, and while scrolling, I felt like my algorithm was reading my mind, which was pretty uncomfortable.
8. Have you ever changed how you speak because of the internet? How?
Probably, but Iāve been online for so long that I wouldnāt even know how Iād speak without it. But I once heard someone say that I talk like a person with 4+ hours of screen time… š«
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