June 13, 2005
Your social world on a phone screen
Originally posted by Regine from we make money not art, reBlogged by ts
The Social Fabric, by Steven Blyth, is a representation of your social world, displayed as a single visual array on your mobile phone. It keeps you informed about which relationships are prospering, which you have neglected, and the overall state of your social fabric.
A series of avatars on your phone screen represent your friends, acquaintances or relatives. The frequency of all digital communications (they can include voice calls, voice Messages, SMS, MMS, e-mail, Instant Messaging, VoIP, etc.) between you and each person, which the system monitors, determines that avatar’s posture: an alert stance indicates frequent recent contact, for example; a lethargic posture or turned back means neglect. You can also register non-digital contacts manually.
The avatars can be grouped manually according to sentiment, category, and so on, or programmed to begin clustering together before an upcoming event: your family before a birthday, or friends before a poker night, for example.
[Wow! This (and the related Gori. node garden) is remarkably similar to a concept — the social garden — I’ve been kicking around for a while in a very primitive form and did a draft concept on last year. This, however, is just brilliant. The body postures… check his PDF thesis to see other visualizations explored, such as pond life, which was a beautiful way to depict social fabric as well. It would be interesting to let users choose from several visualizations/metaphors.]
