“Juxtapositions” is a prototype for a kinetic typography installation that addresses the issue of governing negative or self-destructive impulses on the web. The piece is prompted by a question posed in Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody”: What are we going to do about the negative effects of freedom [online]?
The project is conceived as a large-scale wall projection that juxtaposes the Internet bulletin board messages from members in the pro-anorexic community with bulletin board messages from those trying to overcome anorexia. I envision the piece having multiple movements with different pairings, for example, software pirates and open source software makers.
On a periodic basis the system trawls those chatrooms and websites and retrieves new content, constantly refreshing the projection.
While a prototype was partly coded using openFrameworks, SQLite, and Python, the attached video demonstrates the general concept.