CreativeApplications.Net reports innovation and catalogues projects, tools and platforms relevant to the intersection of art, media and technology. Read more here.

t f r

Search

Best Friends – Casting in wax 451 connections on Facebook [Objects]

Is post social media friendship an emotional investment of diminishing returns? It really depends who you ask. Midwest-based designer Colin Pinegar’s recent BFA project Best Friends definitely calls the authenticity of ubiquitous connectivity into question, or at least adds some nuance to qualifying these relationships. Pinegar created a ‘scorecard’ for his Facebook friends that awarded each online connection 1-25 points based off a range of criteria (do I know this person’s phone number? can I recognize this person by their name alone? etc.) These scores were plotted on a colour spectrum representing the ‘intensity’ of friendship and wax busts were crafted for each of Pinegar’s 451 connections and arranged by value. The resulting array offers not only a bar graph plotting the prevalence of weak ties versus more meaningful bonds, but a physical representation of (and personal response to) social data culled from the web.

Colin Pinegar - Best Friends

Colin’s ‘friend plot’ was accompanied by a series of concise information graphics and CAN was curious as to how this sidebar material related to the arrangement of wax busts. Colin provided the following response via email: “The printouts were supplemental infographics showing data from my ‘friend audit’ that I found interesting, e.g. when I met my friends, how many busts were in each row, as well as the data I found most alarming: how many of my “friends” I had never met (1%), how many ‘friends’ I didn’t recognize by name alone (14%), ‘friends’ with an unknown (to me) location (24%), and ‘friends’ that I hadn’t even seen from a distance in the year prior to my project (55%). There was also a short description and some FAQ’s about the project and a small poster showing how the meaning of the word ‘friend’ has changed.”

Colin Pinegar

When asked to describe the reasoning behind articulating his quantified friendship analysis as physical artifacts, Colin offered the following thoughts on post-digital production: “Like a Facebook ‘friendship,’ most graphic design relies too heavily on the computer—probably for the same reasons: it is quicker, easier, and what most people expect. Since this project was all about the importance of physicality in relationships, it seemed appropriate to avoid the computer and make something with my hands, and I think the outcome provided more impact than reading a number or seeing a graph on a poster. I also wanted to make something for my friends as an act of love and gratitude for supporting me and coming to see the exhibit (each friend was given the bust that represented him or her at the closing reception).”

Colin Pinegar – Best FriendsColin Pinegar – Best Friends

Best Friends clearly capitalizes on a pervasive social vertigo that has become all too familiar. Colin denies that the piece is anti-Facebook—or a polemic against any social network for that matter—but is concerned that the social web is “the communication equivalent of fast food”. While Colin may be wary of the standardization of mediated relationships, he certainly has been savvy in reappropriating this logic to claim ownership of his own social data.

Check out Colin’s project documentation for additional info and images.

Colin Pinegar – Best Friends
Colin Pinegar – Best Friends

via The New Aesthetic

Related Posts with Thumbnails