This project involved using rear projection to create a large-scale display of a Facebook profile in four windows on the side of a townhouse. Using a sort of urban screen, we hoped to create a community-building project that prompted viewers to contemplate the notion of digital self-presentation and Facebook as a discursive medium.
Facadebok was inspired by the way in which Facebook, MySpace, and other networking sites have emerged as a space of self-presentation and social interaction. Such sites allow users to choose what aspects of their life and personality are publicly visible, as well as communicate via instant messaging, photos, and a publicly visible wall.
Regardless of the content of individual profiles, Facebook is universally viewed on relatively small screens, whether they be computers, cell phones, or PDAs. The medium is primarily designed for a more personal level of viewing, i.e. a person behind a small screen. Our idea was to transfer the self-presentational aspects of Facebook onto a larger space, extending the reception space of the medium from the individual screen to a more public and communal display.
We chose to display our project in the four main windows of our townhouse. The first consideration in selecting this space was that it is heavily trafficked. Secondly, the house where we displayed Façadebook is along a walkway comprised of a number of similar townhouses, housing exclusively upperclassmen. We saw potential to use our project as a community building endeavor, through which we would invite fellow students to break the noticeably present taboo against looking into other’s windows, giving passersby a chance to get to know their neighbors, mediated through the deliberate self-presentation of a Facebook profile.
We created a Facebook profile of our house that we felt aggregated the spectrum of beliefs and personalities among the six residents of our house. We placed rear projection screens on both floors of our house, with each projector filling two windows. We made each of the four windows into individual web browser windows, which in combination showed all the various components that make up a Facebook profile. We then loaded our specially created profile of our house, and set each window to refresh the page every five seconds. Refreshing the pages made it possible for changes to the profile, Mini-Feed, and Wall to appear on the front of the house simultaneously, adding an interactive component to our display.
The project ran for two nights, April 21st and 22nd. On the second day Facebook took down our profile because the pages had been refreshing excessively frequently. Consequently we were forced to replace our constructed profile with the profile of one of our housemates, and set the pages to refresh less frequently.
We were very pleased with the responses we got. While quipment constraints made it impossible to keep the project up long enough the have the fully desired social effects the project was seen by a large number of passersby. For several hours we heard a continuous stream of people exlaiming “whoa”, “wow”, and “what is that?”
Special thanks to Lewis Weinberg, Jim Pierret, and Tucker MacNeil for providing the equipment to make this project possible.
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Posted by: Kamari | Jan 14, 2010 at 05:15 AM