ABSTRACT
This chapter considers technology to be the externalization of an internal human process or ability into a 'tool' to be used by an other. The connections between self, perception and the collaborative possibilities of technology lead to wonder what might occur if a process like open-source was applied to identity. The technologies behind Facebook, Twitter and other social media have shifted the makeup of individual identity dramatically towards the external. The presentation and thus construction of identity occurs on a global scale, and authorship over one's persona on the Internet is decidedly distributed. 'Open-source' is the practice and belief that technology's fullest potential is achieved through community-oriented collaboration rather than the corporate pursuit of proprietary production. Identity is a product of people own internal creation, but it is also created in the perception or 'eye' of an external other, and this relationship is reciprocal.
