Ana Paula da Rosa 236 the power to serve us. Transparency does not negate the historical route of social imaginaries. What brings up a crucial point: how are imaginaries engaged in this communicative relation- ship between man and machine? 5. When the Machine Plays at Imagining Me: The Case of Spotify’s Year in Review As mentioned earlier, machine transparency does not negate the influence of social imaginaries. Simultaneously, the machine also engages in the game of imagining the subject. Con- sidering our interactions, it is interesting to ponder how other imaginaries are woven among the actants in the process (Latour, 1994). If we imagine the machine, it also imagines us. Let us take Spotify as a significant element of our culture, more than just a database of “music for everyone,” as the platform suggests. The streaming service that encompasses music, podcasts, and a mul- titude of transformative possibilities for the habit of listening to music increasingly takes on new forms of engagement (after all, it is not just about listening; it involves creating, sharing, and discoveri E n v g e ). ry year, Spotify provides users, especially subscribers, with an annual retrospective of their lives based on the music they listened to, accessed, searches performed, and shared data. This machinic retrospective is, in part, a product of the program and, on the other hand, a means of imagining the user who operates it. You probably have received your retrospective if you are reading this text. The essence lies not in stating how many hours we spent listening to music, how many different artists, or even in revealing our favorite song of 2022. However, that is interesting because we lack that overview. The essence is in what the machine crafts for and about us. For some, an early adopter; for others, ahead of their time; or still, loyal (Figure 04). The machine analyzes, defines, and imagines me. It imagines me as an individual with a particular profile and behavior. In doing so, the machine encourages me to share the created image of myself with others, arouses curiosity, and promotes further consumption. The transparency
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