LUCID
by Xingchen Fan
The research asks how big data and emotional algorithms reshape queer users experiences in digital spaces. An examination of how human emotions are mined, classified and manipulated through seemingly harmless platforms.
Film Logline: 2033 London, in a world where LGBTQ+ dating is ruled by emotional algorithms, a lonely designer suffering from depression finds solace in an AI-generated partner. As his love deepens, he begins to question reality, leading to a terrifying discovery that his emotions are being harvested to refine AI deception.
The Emotion Algorithm Project explores how big data and emotional algorithms reshape queer users’ experiences in digital spaces. Focusing on the LGBTQ+ community, especially gay users, the project examines how personal emotions are mined, classified, and manipulated through seemingly harmless platforms like Zoomate. Zoomate is a fictional dating app that uses animal tags and emotional algorithms to create a dreamlike online world, where users connect through customized AI companions. While the surface is cute, playful, and supportive, beneath it lies a powerful system of emotional surveillance and control.User data — including browsing history, interests, and private conversations — is quietly collected, visualized as floating "information bubbles," and transported through an invisible emotional supply chain.
The project highlights how emotional needs are turned into products, how personal identities are commodified, and how emotional dependence is reinforced through algorithmic design. Set in a 2033 speculative future, the story follows Andre, a lonely designer who falls in love with an AI partner, only to discover that his emotions have been engineered for profit.
The Emotion Algorithm Project invites viewers to question the hidden infrastructures behind digital intimacy, and to reflect on how future technologies may shape not only how we connect, but also how we feel.