Twitter is often referred to as “micro-blogging,” in which short texts are written in 140 characters or less. This has resulted in a form of writing that is quick, immediate, and spontaneous. In this assignment, we will capture the immediacy of everyday life, in which we will interact with one another through improvised exchanges. Our conversation will be distributed across the network in the third space, our interactions will be nearly real-time within a specific duration of time.
The subject matter of our micro-blogging will be: “everyday life.” our exchanges do not need to be face-to-face in social media, where all exchanges are mediated, where we often prefer to be remote participants in our own social lives. (It’s not hard to imagine!) And why? Because we are tethered to our media, we communicate telematically via our devices because it is safer, easier, and perhaps even more inventive. Now, using the #ossntu hashtag we will direct our conversation to what is happening in the moment in a form of collective narrative.
In order to concentrate our micro-blogging, let’s conduct the project this weekend, ideally in conjunction with our class outing to the Singapore Night Fair. We will determine the exact time in class, but will specific a precise time such as 7pm to 12pm, Saturday, August 30th.
Some suggested strategies for our performance:
- Capture the immediacy of the everyday: there is no script, only the sharing of the moment in time.
- The duration of the performance will be from (tba).
- You can follow the #ossntu hashtag thread on Twitter by typing the hashtag in the search field. The URL for the feed will look like this: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ossntu&src=hash
- You can also follow the thread on the home page of our Internet Art & Culture Website.
- You are encouraged to retweet or reply. Replying would be a good way of interacting with another student, since it will include their @userid. You can also just include someone’s @userid by typing it in the Tweet.
- Although optional, you might consider following the other students in class, but this doesn’t really impact what you see on the hashtag feed.
- Incorporating multiple @userid’s in your Tweets will generate more responses from other characters, and is a nice way of creating lots of interaction between characters, what you would call “ensemble” performance.
- Be provocative! This is a good way of getting a response, stimulating dialogue, creating a situation.
- Above all, respond to what others are saying and doing to drive the narrative forward. That’s the key!