DESCRIPTION

Trying to decipher the new and the old in a perspective of instantaneous short messages, WHATisWHAT sifts and harvests Twitter.com for blurbs that contain the terms ‘is the new’. The result is an infinitely-growing web of tags and associations linking new things to their now-obsolete equivalents.

CONCEPT

Social media has become the platform of choice for sharing our experiences, and networked objects such as smart phones and portable netbooks are leading the way in providing the hardware and software to let us easily do so. The first aim of the project was to build a map of collective intelligence based on the empirical data sent in the form of tweets to observe changing trends and ideals of the digitally connected. As data grew over time, it also became a great way of visualizing serendipitous associations and interesting conceptual leaps created by different people that do not know each other. A recurring critique of Twitter’s concept is its lack of substance and context due to the short length of messages. WHATisWHAT is trying to be the glue for all these disconnected ideas and provide some context to help frame the data it collects.

TECHNICAL

PHP, Javascript (ajax) and Twitter API

PUBLICATION

Project done as an assignment during the months of february and march to support my application to the Piet Zwart Institute – Willem de Kooning Academy at Rotterdam University for the masters in Media design and Communication : Networked media.