Micro-Project 2 – Crowd-Sourced Art

What is the content of the work and who is creating it?

Our work is a collection of people’s secrets.

We asked strangers and our followers on Instagram the same question – what is your deepest, darkest secret? 

Omegle responses:

Instagram responses:

Where does this work take place?

One of the 2 online platforms that we used was Omegle, which is, as quoted on their website:

Omegle (oh·meg·ull) is a great way to meet new friends. When you use Omegle, we pick someone else at random and let you talk one-on-one. To help you stay safe, chats are anonymous unless you tell someone who you are (not suggested!), and you can stop a chat at any time. Predators have been known to use Omegle, so please be careful.

We asked strangers to share with us about their deepest, darkest, secrets. 

We also used the questions sticker on Instagram, which is a photo and video-sharing social networking service where we connect with our friends, families, acquaintances, or even celebrities. The intended audience of using Instagram would be our followers, who could be our friends or acquaintances, or simply, people that we know. The questions sticker on Instagram allows us to ask our followers any question, or vice versa, and post the response on our Instagram Story without their Instagram handle and their profile picture. We did not use the feature of posting the responses on our Instagram Story as they are meant to be “secrets” (but since they are on OSS I guess they’re no longer secrets…….:)…..) We asked them the same question – what is your deepest, darkest secret? and got very different responses.

How does this work involve social interaction?

We ask strangers and friends a question through online platforms and receive answers that add to our collection of secrets. On Omegle, the anonymous people had responses that would include:

1. telling us their deepest darkest secrets (mostly, if not all sexual)
2. asking us back what our secrets were
3. would only tell us their secrets after we shared ours with them
4. ask if we had same/similar secrets as them
5. leaving the chat before answering.

On Instagram, our followers (who knew us) gave us responses that would include:

1. nonsense 
2. inside jokes
3. stories that were funny and disgusting
4. ignore our stories and not respond at all (which could mean that they could have REAL secrets but just unwilling to tell us)

The social interaction that we had were the exchange of information that we and the responders had. We triggered the responders to think about what their secrets were (no matter they answered or not), and in exchange, they gave us a response to contribute to our collection. 

How is your crowd-sourced project different from one that is created by a single artist/creator?

The different responses we got from this project were a result of different experiences from different people living very different lives. If only one creator shared their own deepest, darkest secret, it means that there will only be one response in our collection. The social interactions that could result from that would be reading it (one-way interaction) or leaving comments about it (two-way interaction) which does not contribute to the collection of secrets (unless they willingly share their secrets). Having a crowd-sourced project like this creates a variety of responses, and as questioners, it also makes us wonder about the psychology and reasons behind why strangers are more willing to tell us their secrets than people that we know or trust. The responders also play a vital part in this project as our collection comes from their contributions. 

Micro-Project 1 – Creating the Third Space

1. Why did you choose this space or object to photograph?

A place in ADM that has special significance to me.

I chose to photograph the lift as it not only transports us to different floors but is also space where we often interact with each other. In the small space, we often take awkward rides with strangers, rides that are full of laughter with our friends, and rides alone where we get temporary peace from the chaos in school. One thing that differentiates our lift from the others are the posters on the wall beside the lifts. It is always filled with posters about school events, which reminds me of the vibrant culture we have in our school.

2. What are some of the characteristics of this alternative virtual space you had created collectively?

The ADM building is a place where we grow to be better individuals/artists, and a place where many of us created many memories with our friends.

#1010adm photos
#1010adm photos
A photo and caption that we can all relate to :’)

Everyone’s experience as an ADM student is different, which is shown by the different photos shown in the #1010adm hashtag. Even though we all take different photos, it’s interesting how we can relate to the photos and captions posted by someone that we may not talk to before. (This can be seen from the likes and comments on the photos – see above) We post photos based on our own experiences on the alternative virtual space, which then becomes an experience that we all can share together.

3. Under what circumstance will this alternative virtual space change?

It will only change when someone posts something new, or someone deletes their photo. Also, the outcome of the alternative virtual space depends on the viewer. Any non-ADM student would probably think that the photos in the #1010adm hashtag are weird, random, and unrelatable. The students or faculty in ADM would relate more to the photos posted to their own experiences and would probably have the same feeling of 懐かしい (natsukashii – of some small thing that brings you suddenly, joyously back to fond memories, not with a wistful longing for what’s past, but with an appreciation of good times.)

4. How does this project relate to what we discussed in the lecture regarding co-creation, the concept of Do-It-Yourself (DIY), Do-It-With-Others (DIWO)?

Taking the photos of our own special place in ADM is DIY, as we try to capture our own experiences and feelings of that place. We are the creators of our own photos. Posting and hashtagging #1010adm on Instagram is a collaboration with our schoolmates, which is DIWO, where we create an alternative virtual space of the ADM building incorporating our personal experiences in the photos.