love artwork: .d.a.t.a.l.o.v.e.r. 2004/2005
using a structure that is at once a theater and a game, this work seeks to explore the code and the cultural scripting of love thereby teasing out themes of "intimate distance" that occur on distributed, networked platforms. -- how do people feel safe in this medium and in games in ways that they do not in RL? what kinds of intimacies do these platforms allow for? in what ways does this game/performance space reveal cultural scripts that go unnoticed in RL? -- is there love in the telematic embrace, etc.
the last part of this piece requests user input regarding their role-played or real feelings about the other player. the text that they enter goes nowhere; there is no storage of this information. my intent here is multifold; in an age of documention, where every piece of data is stored and fed back, the lack of feedback here creates a kind of mystery, and reveals the extreme to which digital culture has gone in terms of feedback, data storage and documentation. especially in love, we are desperate for some kind of feedback or assurance which we never really get. this piece was inspired and designed for Internet2; in future iterations of this piece i will experiment with it on this platform.
using a structure that is at once a theater and a game, this work seeks to explore the code and the cultural scripting of love thereby teasing out themes of "intimate distance" that occur on distributed, networked platforms. -- how do people feel safe in this medium and in games in ways that they do not in RL? what kinds of intimacies do these platforms allow for? in what ways does this game/performance space reveal cultural scripts that go unnoticed in RL? -- is there love in the telematic embrace, etc.
the last part of this piece requests user input regarding their role-played or real feelings about the other player. the text that they enter goes nowhere; there is no storage of this information. my intent here is multifold; in an age of documention, where every piece of data is stored and fed back, the lack of feedback here creates a kind of mystery, and reveals the extreme to which digital culture has gone in terms of feedback, data storage and documentation. especially in love, we are desperate for some kind of feedback or assurance which we never really get. this piece was inspired and designed for Internet2; in future iterations of this piece i will experiment with it on this platform.