“This is extreme Capitalism,” says Jennifer Lyn Morone, officially Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc, a C-corporation according to the state of Delaware. In her website and video pitch, the Design Interactions graduate student explains how she has “established a new business model that is designed to determine the value of an individual relative to society and to the data he or she creates.”
As an incorporated person, Morone™ is attempting to monetize her “health, genetics, personality, capabilities, experience, potential, virtues and vices” and other personal information that is mimed regularly with invasive technology by corporations and the government.
Buried in her dry, corporate and awkward rhetoric is the simple mechanism behind the project — Morone has her own data-collecting app which collects exuberant amounts of information about her, but keeps it private in order to protect her ownership of it. Later, she can “sell, lease, rent, exchange or invest” that information and her various analysis of her own potential consumer behavior.
The project is somewhat clunky and makes one appreciate the deadpan post-irony of K-Hole’s trend forecasting reports, mostly because Morone™ is working within a similar topical conceptual field, but doesn’t “pass” as the system it is commenting on. Not only does Morone fully admit to the project’s overall irony, she slips out with the political feelings in an interview with We Make Money Not Art:
Now that I have incorporated myself, I have legally created another person with my name in the eyes of the law. In the USA my corporate self now has not only the same but even more rights and benefits than I do as an individual. My corporate self takes on any responsibility and I am not liable for its actions or debt, only my initial investments. This is why we see companies able to go bankrupt, get bailouts or get away with ruthlessness without anyone being charged or responsible for what happens.
However, what Morone™ lacks in subtly by the very voicing of concern about corporate abuse and surveillance, Morone™ makes up in absurdist degrees to which she takes her data monetizing attempts. In fact, her “shareholders” can vote on whether she will play guitar or eat octopus, and those interested in investing can see a full price list for everything from “compassion” to “blood samples” on her website. Her urine is free.
