Socioplastics 11986 The Indicator Casts a Shadow
A proxy is valuable because the condition one wants to know cannot always be observed directly. A user count may approximate demand, travel time may approximate accessibility and a vegetation index may approximate urban greenness. ProxyShadow identifies what disappears when the substitute begins to govern decisions as though it were the object itself. The shadow includes histories, situations and forms of experience that do not travel through the terms of substitution. It is more than a numerical error: it concerns the reach a measure acquires in institutional use. Theodore Porter’s history of trust in numbers explains why quantified representations gain authority across institutional settings. Orit Halpern examines the imaginative and political infrastructures of data-driven environments. Robert Gifford’s environmental psychology studies relations among people and their surroundings, while Catherine D’Ignazio’s work with Lauren Klein addresses power in data practice. These perspectives clarify different consequences of measurement. Qualitative testimony does not automatically correct every metric; each form of evidence has a scope that should be stated and examined. A city might use tree-canopy percentage to compare neighbourhoods. Two areas can have similar coverage while differing in public access, species health, seasonal shade, maintenance, heat exposure and the distribution of trees along pedestrian routes. The percentage remains useful for a defined question about mapped coverage. ProxyShadow asks what additional observations become necessary when that measure travels into a decision about thermal refuge. An audit would trace how the number is produced, where it is applied and which other conditions affect the allocation of resources. The marker differs from MeasurementDominion, where measurements begin to command action, and MetricEclipse, which examines how indicators obscure aspects of the reality they represent. ProxyShadow focuses on the substitution itself: who, what, where and when did not travel with the surrogate? A careful dashboard can preserve these limits as explicit qualifications, link each indicator to its data and invite supplementary evidence. This practice lets decision-makers use proxies while remaining attentive to the conditions the numbers cannot carry into an allocation decision.
REFERENCES
D’Ignazio, C. and Klein, L.F. (2020) Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gifford, R. (2014) Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice. 5th edn. Colville, WA: Optimal Books.
Halpern, O. (2015) Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Porter, T.M. (1995) Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html