Final Project: Project Social Life

       Project Social Life. Project Social Life is an interactive online social performance. In this experiment, we test the power of social media in our lives and the effects of losing control over our lives. Our project revolved around Instagram. Instagram was our source, our outlet, and our dictator. To test this, we created a separate Instagram account and constantly asked the question, “What should we do next?” on our Instagram Story. There would be a poll attached to each question with two options sent in by our followers in the beginning of the experiment. Our group would then wait ten minutes and do the option with the most votes, following the idea that we have no control over our actions but social media does.

Sneak Peak:

       Our entire day was curated by social media and the decisions of other people we barely know. We wanted to show people the power of social media in our lives and how it feels to be puppets held by the hands of strangers. Much like Finding Uncle Roy, a Blast Theory work that focused around the concept of trusting strangers, we put our trust and life in the hands of strangers.  We started off the experiment in ADM NTU but due to the demands of the people, we ended up in Haji Lane after a long subway journey. I like the rest of my group mates, was in charge of the Instagram account as well as one of the “victims” of social media and the lack of control.

        While the entire point of our project was to embrace the unexpected and the unknowable, there were still certain aspects to our experiment that left us in a sticky situation. We were always stuck at a certain place for 10 minutes because we were unable to proceed without the say-so of our Third Space companions. And until we got a response we were unable to move because no one told us “what to do”. 

     For our trailer, we were inspired by Carla Gannis’s artwork, “Until the End of the World (2017)”. Not only because the aesthetics of Carla Gannis’s work is compelling, but also because the meaning behind her work relates to ours to an extent. “Until the End of the World” is about a girl who is engrossed in her handheld device (technology) to the extent that she has no awareness of what is going on around her; the girl’s dreams and reality have manifested within the cyber world. Due to the project, our lives have also become controlled by our handheld devices. We were constantly on our phones to see the results, post the results, and record our results. Even until the very end, we our lives were controlled by the theoretical third space and the physical smartphone. In modern society, our lives are dictated by the third space; it is not always negative nor always positive. It connects us by bridging together the restrictions made by geography but at the same time influences our behaviors and thoughts to accommodate to the collective whole. Project Social Life does exactly that. Through this we succumbed to the majority and did what others told us to do yet through this experience in the third space with other people, we not only learned to negotiate with these people but created friendships with them. Life is about balance. It is important to keep this balance regardless of the situation as this gives you the most successful and meaningful use of a situation. In the begininning of this year, my friends and I stepped into the first space known as the 4D room unsure of what to expect from the class. After one semester, we find ourselves in the third space; connecting with different parts of the world and working with entanglements that we face in our everyday lives with eagerness and quick-thinking. 

Final Trailer:

password: projectsociallife

Micro-experiment #1: Social Broadcasting

HII EVERYONEEEEEE ?????

Posted by Cecilia Hyun Jae Cho on Thursday, 18 January 2018

SUMMARY

       Entering the Experimental Interaction classroom, I had no idea what we would be expecting. We could assume that it would be about different modes of interaction from physical to spacial but we never really thought about internet. Internet has become the main mode of communication between people locally and globally. Internet connects us as well as serves as a platform for expression and storage system. In this micro-experiment, we used the Live video function provided by Facebook to record fifteen minutes of our time and then post it on a Live Video Wall. 

LIVE FACEBOOK WALL

       The wall was such an interesting way of compiling all the videos. The way it was laid out was like a newsroom where there are multiple screens taking in information from different places around the world (different time zones and locations). And though everyone is on the same wall, every screen shows people own little world. Even if the 15 minute journey was in the same school, everyone’s journey seemed different and unique.

FILMING

       Filming the video was an amusing experience for my friends and me. We released our “inner youtuber” with a “vlogging” style way of recording our videos. We acted silly while walking around the school from the Foundation 4D room to the Sunken Plaza. And the fact that there were people around the school who were unaware of our micro-project, mad the experience even more hilarious.

REFLECTION

       The power of technology has allowed us to connect with people in such a creative yet simple way. And though some people see technology as something that creates more problems such as; anti-social behavior, disillusionment, and accidents. Technology, like everything else in this world, and a flip side to it. Technology branches people from all over the world together and allows people to fortify those connections.