Cookies
Cookies is a satirical web art piece about manipulation, and not only the kind that hides in cookie banners. It opens with a familiar cookie consent modal, except the Manage Settings button runs away from the cursor using physics-based mouse avoidance, making it nearly impossible to click, just like websites make it hard to decline data collection. Once they accept, users face a surveillance interface with their own webcam feed in red duotone, fake surveillance messages, automatic screenshots, and an unsettling face that follows the mouse. Underneath the satire, it is really about manufactured consent and the illusion of choice: being watched while you believe you are in control, agreeing to terms you never actually read, and only noticing the cost once it is too late. Those same quiet patterns run through manipulative relationships as much as manipulative interfaces.
