Interactivity - Rationale

Interactivity - Rationale

My starting block was remembering Simon Morse and Soheila Sokhanavri’s work. Morse’s work had a running theme of human interactivity. The work itself wasn’t physically interactive as such, but its messages and meaning lay in the concept. Soheila’s work was around the idea of human conditioning, where she would set up installations and observe how the public interacted and reacted. She wasn’t trying to oppose her own message, but letting it take its own course and observe reactions. I really liked this concept and wanted to apply social experiments in my project. Human interaction between themselves is the area I intended to explore.

My base to the project was around the idea of the interaction in public toilets, toilet graffiti. The idea of messages and pictures being written on surfaces that are not in the intention of the architecture, and strangers reading it and not knowing who did it really struck me. Someone would start with a phrase or picture, and over time people would add, reinterpret, and evolve it something that could take up a wall. The stranger interaction is an idea I really liked. A kind of detached communication. People would express inner views in these situations, as there’s security of anonymity. Such conversations would not always happen in a face to face situation, especially with strangers. Toilet graffiti is not just about tagging your signature (territorial pissings). (Such text is not simply marking territory, but also reveals the strategies that two or more participants who lack co-presence use to communicate, as well as aspects of the social connections between them, and mutual perceptions of, individuals.)
To gain research and material, I went around and snapped photos in pub toilets. Looking for interesting messages and conversations to use as either work content or research. This proved to be successful. To gain even more photo’s I created a group on Facebook to get my friends to send me ones that they had found either by taking the photo, or finding ones on the net they found interesting.
To convey my ideas I came up with an instillation idea. First of all it consists of an interface that allows the user to a write a short message. You then receive an anonymous message from a previous user. You can then reply to this comment; however the owner will not receive it. The whole experience will be anonymous. To an extent it’s simulating the effect of toilet graffiti communication. The user gives something to receive something back. However the experience will be different due to the fact the user has to participate to receive anything rather than just being a voyeur. The more people use it the more it grows.
I decided that the interface should be placed where only one person at a time can see it, enabling privacy. I would create a fake toilet cubicle and the interface would go on the wall inside. It would replicate a real cubicle to try and get people into the mindset of the tone of writing in public toilets. It would be interesting to see if people left their names, a message like a post card. Or weather the majority will remain anonymous and write extremer thoughts. There's also the possibility of people changing their identity and pretend they’re something they’re not. E.g. Sex, race, age.
I created an interactive web-site like document using Flash software. It displays my images of research on toilet graffiti. It would consist of photos that I had taken myself and ones that I had obtained from friends using a group on Facebook. I would then like at some later point put it on the internet and allow people to upload and view photos of it, collecting an archive of Latrinalia (the term given to toilet graffiti).