Members (and Twitter users) only
As part of my application for the current Artspace Research Commission, I was asked to consider how I “would share the project/involve others via social media etc”.
Beyond Flickr and Vimeo etc I don’t really use any social media platforms, but the prompt (and the expectations wrapped up within it) got me thinking: what if the building did the tweeting? What interesting questions might that highlight.
The table monitor. And a monkey.
So, for the last couple of days I’ve been wiring different sensors into a room at Artspace that is, I understand, usually kept as a space reserved for the studio members (think staff room crossed with meeting room crossed with common room).
That private space is now publishing messages to Twitter whenever the photocopier lid is lifted, the kettle boiled or the table clunked. As I type, my glamorous assistant Reece is working away on one of our other interactive devices, so the table monitor is being triggered quite a lot!
See @ArtspaceMonitor for the feed.
Objects updating status messages onto the Twitter platform is by no means a new idea and the occurrences I’m logging are not particularly dramatic, but I think it raises some interesting points for discussion. (Like when Reece goes to lunch!)
The kettle corner, with additional electronic items
The brew monitor
The pool of message texts it selects from are not very extensive, so it’ll be interesting to see how followers of the account respond to the inevitable repetition.
It was also very interesting to sit down and try to imagine what voice the room would use and how it might perceive the activities taking place. What I really needed there was a team of 4-year-olds on the case, as I’m sure they would have found the task a lot easier!
Anyway, we have a demonstration up and working and you’re invited to have a glimpse at the things going on within the Members’ Room. Here on the inside we’ll be watching carefully to see if people end up changing their behaviour once they know echoes of it are being heard outside the walls…
Again, the Twitter stream is at @ArtspaceMonitor.
Ethernet shield sitting in the corner taking care of things