Finding other, real-life humans to talk to is hard, nowadays: I mean, you don’t want to take valuable time from your day by talking to the random guy sitting next to you at this year’s TED Conference in Vancouver if he doesn’t have similar interests. Luckily for you, artists Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonald have come up with a solution: immersing visitors in their social media feeds in order to find friends.
McCarthy and McDonald’s TED art installation, called “Social Soul,” is a room covered in mirrors that project their social media stream, effectively immersing them in their online presence.
Once visitors step inside the room, Social Soul uses custom algorithms to analyze their Twitter feeds and assign a “soul mate” for the conference based on common interests. As soon as you step out of the room, both you and your conference soul mate are sent a tweet that encourages you to meet and interact outside of social networks. (Yes, that means face to face).
Aside from a truly dizzying amount of mirrors, the Social Soul project uses audio and music, as well as seven separate code languages, to create a fully immersive experience. If you have the pleasure of stopping in Vancouver this year, I’d give it a whirl. It’s not like you don’t spend all of your time sucked inside social media anyway.
Source Discovery
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