NEW MEDIA: I Want You to Want Me

I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. The creators of the exhibit, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, gather vast amounts of online data (from popular online dating sites every few hours) and organize it into balloons, metaphorically. The exhibit attempts to chronicle long term dating relationships across ages, genders, and sexualities. The target audience is anyone who is curious about online dating or human relationships in general.

The presentation of the data highlights general trends in dating. What are the most popular first dates? What are the most popular turn-ons? Who has interesting self descriptions? Some of the data representations are somewhat abstract and not entirely clear, but they do give a ephemeral sense of interest regardless.

The data is presented on a 56" high resolution touch screen. The touch screen draws in the user more intimately than a mouse and keyboard. Females are red balloons and males are blue balloons. The darker colours represent people who are older, and the lighter colours represents youth. The interactive sky is also colour coded... but I can't remember why. :) Inside the balloons are video silhouettes of the potential dates. The software, created by Jonathan and Sep, also recommends ideal setups.















The exhibit appears very fluid and emotional... not bad for presenting large statistical numbers. The topic is definitely engaging and current (since the software is constantly updating with new information). I'd like to see it in person one day. :) The work was originally commissioned by the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for their show, Design & the Elastic Mind in Feb. 2008. Check out I Want You To Want Me.


ASIDE:

Jonathan Harris' background is in computer science but his real passion is storytelling. He merges programming, statistics, anthropology, art, and storytelling into his works. Are people in Asia mostly happy or sad? Are people in the US usually happier on sunny days? Check out We Feel Fine to find the answers. He also "shares" his computer code under a Creative Commons share-alike license.