Personas shows you how the Internet sees you. It allows you to see how the machine is working, revealing the computer’s uncanny insights and inadvertent errors such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to our current and future world where digital histories are as important – if not more important – than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant – for now. Fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, and this kind of data is indispensable but far from infallible.

Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person – to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

Fine Art Adoption Network (FAAN) is an online network, which uses a gift economy to connect artists and potential collectors. All of the artworks on view are available for adoption. This means acquiring an artwork without purchasing it, through an arrangement between the artist and collector. Their goal is to help increase and diversify the population of art owners and to offer artists new means for engaging their audience.

FAAN is initiated by Brooklyn-based visual artist Adam Simon, and commissioned by Art in General. Sustained by the belief that critical cultural production entails re-imagining the ways in which art can be experienced and shared, FAAN’s goals are to give committed artists a platform to share their artwork with an audience interested in owning and experiencing it day after day; to give people the occasion of learning about contemporary art, as well as the way to enter into a direct dialogue with an artist. As a posting board, FAAN is also a collection of artworks in itself that, like a museum or an exhibition, has the potential of creating new knowledge about art and its experience, and a new type of audience, a community created from a dialogue about art and trust, and, evidently, social exchange.

Since its launch in April 2006, over one hundred artists have created accounts, more than 500 people are participating as adopters, and dozens of adoptions of contemporary art work have taken place.

BBC Memoryshare is a living archive of memories from 1900 to the present day. People are invited to contribute, share, and browse memories of life experiences and see them in the context of recent and historical events. Memories can include text, photos and videos.

The Putting Lot examines the relevance of empty space in the city. Located in Bushwick, Brooklyn, this miniature golf course occupies what was once a vacant lot.

Visitors will be able  to experience putt putt as a means for embodying and moving through art and ideas. Each hole will be designed by a different group of artists or architects around themes of urban sustainability. Whether actively or passively, users will engage with the art and the ideas embedded in the course.

The Putting Lot will be fun and entertaining while creating awareness about specific urban issues in an affordable and accessible way. The changes that have and continue to occur in this neighborhood jeopardize its sustainability. Empty spaces hold the potential to shape the future of this area, and The Putting Lot examines what might occupy these spaces. By experiencing the ideas of urban sustainability presented by artists and architects and by taking part in a series of events held in the public area, visitors are encouraged to participate in a productive conversation.

The New York Times goes shopping with the creators of the Putting Lot here.

The New York Times website has published a collection of special features called Living With Less, on the human side of the global recession. Survival Strategies is an interactive feature where readers share tips on everyday actions they have taken in response to the economic downturn.

Submissions range from impressive belt-tightening DIY tips (“I make my own laundry detergent, for 5¢ a load. I made 8 new washcloths out of 2 old bath towels. I pack lunches, bake bread, & mend socks”) to tongue-in-cheek humor (“I make self-deprecating jokes about how broke I am. Believe it or not, it actually cheers me up. Especially when others are doing the same”).

What are your survival strategies? How are you getting by in the economic downturn? Share your best advice, ask a question, comment on other peoples’ strategies and recommend the most helpful ones.

You can follow Living With Less on Twitter here.