ResearchPost3, Uncategorized

Research Post 3 for Gray Area Festival

This is a very very interesting project because it basically introduces an idea of spending time with oneself, which I find it easy to relate to. But this project focuses more on the mentality that although we are alone, we want to be watched by someone else. While surveillance is out of control in this era, we demand to be seen by others and catch attention whenever we can. This app creates a conception that someone is following the user throughout the day. And at the end of the day, users will be captured in a picture taken by their “follower”. This project makes me reflect on our desire to gain more followers on social media. These followers are just like “followers” in this project. We don’t really care about who they are as long as they make us attention seekers.

by Karen
ResearchPost3, Uncategorized

ResearchPost3

In the video, Lauren McCathy talks about the story of people following each other in the society and what she learned from this action. Her projects like the App called pplkpr are very interesting to me. The purpose of this App is to track, analyze, and auto-manage people’s relationships. It uses data to show who makes us happy and who makes us angry, and choose the better person to hang out or to block for us. In my opinion, the central idea of this App is to monitor our emotions and thus make our decisions more objective. This idea is very thought provoking. During the speech she mentioned ”it feels weird, it feels wrong, but what if a computer can actually make better decisions than you can?” This questions reminds me that people always have hard time to manage their relationship with others. Sometime we jus cannot realize or do not want to face our real feelings. It is always an outsider or bystander who know what is really going on, what kind of person we are socialize with. Perhaps it is extremely difficult for us to be objective when deal with our own emotions. So I would love to try the app and see how objective I have been.

by Crystal
ResearchPost3

JiYoung_ResearchPost03

One of Lauren McCarthy’s projects was called Follower. It was used by people who wanted to be followed in real life, rather than online, for a day, by a stranger. The objective was for people to share things with people by sight, rather than having to converse and touch base with somebody. The users were people who want a relationship but with somebody who they never have to talk to that can just follow them and see what they were doing. It was intended to be fun for the person being followed but also give a new experience for the follower, and could positively impact them. The users signed up by filling a form, then if they were selected, they had access to an app.

After a follower started following the user, they would be notified.

At the end of the day, the app would notify the user that they were no longer being followed with a picture taken of them during the day by their follower in the background.

by JiYoung
ResearchPost3

Lauren McCarthy-Follower

In her talk at the 2017 Gray Area Festival, Lauren McCarthy spoke about her project called Follower. Users could apply to be followed and if selected, they would receive a link to download the follower app. This service would allow the user to be followed by an anonymous person for one day. The follower would have the GPS location of the user and physically follows them while remaining hidden. At the end of the day, the user will be told through their app that they will no longer be followed. They will also be showed a picture of themselves that their follower took of them during that day. With this project, McCarthy brings up a lot of interesting points about the idea of being followed. With the growing presence of social media, users may get too focused on their follower count that it count affect their behavior both on and offline. In effort to show off having a “perfect” life, or the image of it, people may become selective to what they post online, and/or modify their behaviors in real life just to get a picture or video that they can post online. It also brings up the idea that with social media, users may feel like they have to showcase every moment of their life, whether big or small. While it seems reasonable to share momentous occasions with friends and family, we are also able to share these personal moments with complete strangers online. This also brings up the issues with privacy and security when sharing information online and the question of when does following become stalking. But I think personally, I would be interested in having Follower for a day, to see how it may make me more conscious of my actions, knowing that someone could be watching me. However on the other hand, I also think that I would feel a bit paranoid over the idea that there is someone out there that is constantly watching me.

 

by Angie