Yesterday, after 2 day shooting and interviewing people we went to the MIT Museum to see CONNECTIONS - which was recommended to us by David Weinberger.

CONNECTIONS explores the social potential of new communication technologies. Art installations and research projects by the Sociable Media Group challenge visitors to think about the rapidly changing world of social interaction and the ramifications for the future. Avatar chairs, data portraits and an immersive information cityscape are just some of the exciting aspects of this new exhibition.





My favourite was Themail: Relationships portrayed in email
Themail portrays its subject’s relationship with another person and how it changes over time, based on their email correspondence. A word’s size, for instance, in the portrait shows how frequent and characteristic it is in a person’s e-mail. Themail skirts the boundary between public and private: by using only single words, it depicts the essence of a conversation without revealing the specific meaning. The final result: A beautiful "painting: in black and orange ...

The Sociable Media Group itsself is very interesting research group at the MIT. It investigates issues concerning society and identity in the technologically mediated world. They address such questions as: How do we perceive other people on-line? What does a virtual crowd look like? How do social conventions develop in the networked world?

Their emphasis is on design: we build experimental interfaces and installations that explore new forms of social interaction in the mediated world.