"Friends
The project Friends is a workshop which translates the so-called social web
- online services such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. - into a paper-based
form in physical space.All workshop participants contribute a profile
page to the big Friends Book and make their own personal friends
booklet in which to collect as many friends as possible. With their own
hand-made profile photo stamp and a large amount of prefabricated web
2.0 service stamps, users trade among each other information about
their favorite online services and web activities. In order to be
recognized as Friends workshop participants, users can wear a button
with their own profile photo or display their Web 2.0 preferences on
Friends Tattoos.
Social
networks in the internet, which have become hugely popular over the
last few years, have given the term "friend" a completely new meaning.
In contrast to the usually restricted and time-consuming circle of
friends in everyday life, in the internet it is possible to find a
large number of friends quickly with just a few clicks.And only a few
of these friends are actually personally known by the user. Without a
great deal of effort it is possible to have hundreds, thousands or even
hundreds of thousands of friends in the Internet. Who has the most
friends? Who is the best-known and the most often to be seen? The
development of the internet in recent years enables the individual to
gratify his/her desire for recognition and attention in quite a new
way.
With reference
to the classic German poetry album or the friendship book in the USA,
the Friends workshop takes this development as the central theme and
opens a debate over the many-layered types from friendship. The
time-honored paper-based technology and tools used in the workshop as
well as the handicraft skills of its participants contrast with the
screen-limited but highly efficient online world of the social
networks. In contrast to the obvious open contact with private
information in the social web, the classic paper document conceals a
high degree of obligation and protects privacy.The data from the web
services documented on paper during the Friends workshop pose anew the
question of the private and public nature of web identities.
Who is my friend? How well do we know each other? Where do we meet?
How does the Social Web effect inter-personal relationships?
Aram Bartholl 2008" Print this post
