Your Facebook profile contains some of your most private photos and communications. It traces your past and current relationships and has become the focus for an ongoing debate about privacy, advertising, and security in the time of social media. But is it art?
In a new partnership announced yesterday between Shapeways and The Creators Project, it has the potential to be. Three artists have created three data-driven applications that turn your Facebook profile into a 3-D printable objet d'art.
Each version uses your Facebook data in a different way to create a unique, procedurally designed digital object. If you like, you can print one of your own through Shapeways.
Monster Me from Sticky Monster Lab tracks who you are. It creates cute beasties and their environments by looking at when you were born, and what time zone you live in. They grow based on how much you post to your Facebook timeline.
Crystalized from Softlab tracks who you know. It creates a virtual geode crystal based on your 20 closest friends, with the shape determined by how many friends you share with them. Crack it open and inside you'll find colored crystal clusters whose shapes are representations of the interests and likes of your friends.
Astrolab from Sosolimited tracks what you say. It scans the text you post for keywords and personality types. Based on what it learns about you, it creates a unique zodiac symbol and a horoscope.
Each project is completely unique and undoubtedly beautiful; it seems likely that lots of people will play around with it and enjoy their personalized playthings—not to mention export it to Shapeways' printing service. But there is a deeper meaning at work here. As the world struggles to come to grips with Facebook's latest privacy pushing move. As artifacts of an automated data collection process, these objects serve as a beautiful reminder of just how much Facebook knows about all of us.
It's said that Renaissance intellectuals used to keep a skull on their work desk as a memento mori. Perhaps these can act as a memento memory.
