{"id":778,"date":"2010-02-19T12:43:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T19:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?p=778"},"modified":"2016-10-03T13:30:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T20:30:20","slug":"today-too-i-experienced-something-i-hope-to-understand-in-a-few-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?p=778","title":{"rendered":"Today, too, I experienced something I hope to understand in a few days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3QrnGkbZZk0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" align=\"left\" cellspacing=\"10\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\"><strong>Commission:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Commissioned by Folly and the Abandon Normal Devices Festival<\/tr>\n<td valign=\"top\"><strong>Exhibition:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><em>Abandon Normal Devices Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture<\/em><br \/>\nCumbria, UK: 15 March \u2013 10 April 2010<br \/>\nManchester, UK: 1 October &#8211; 7 October 2010 <\/tr>\n<td><strong>Materials:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Facebook application, computers<\/tr>\n<td valign=\"top\"><strong>Description:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><em>Today, too, I experienced something I hope to understand in a few days<\/em> comprises three elements, all of which engage with different forms of (self-) surveillance. The first element is a series of video portraits of volunteers, shot using poses and actions loosely based on Danish filmmaker Jorgen Leth\u2019s 1967 film <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/11482893\" target=\"_blank\">The Perfect Human<\/a>. The work\u2019s title comes from a line in the film. The videos are uploaded to a database where a program automatically edits them in the style of Leth\u2019s film, their actions becoming jerky and strangely mechanical.<\/p>\n<p>The second element of the work uses text from status profiles acquired from Facebook users who voluntarily signed up on Facebook to participate in the project. A software application automatically finds narrative relationships between the status updates and matches the Facebook profiles with the demographic of the video portraits, the Facebook profile texts serving as subtitles to the portraits. The final component of the project involves software that searches YouTube for videos that link to keywords in the subtitles, the final works being shown on YouTube as split-screen videos, the video portrait on one screen, its paired YouTube video on the other.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first art project to be made \u2018inside\u2019 Facebook, and takes advantage of the controversial privacy settings available to Facebook developers. It also uses story detection software designed to discover narrative in large volumes of blog entries (developed at USC by Reid Swanson). YouTube, as a large, self-tagged database of human activities, is an ideal source of contextual data to accompany the Facebook narratives. The project runs as a Facebook application: all people who join the application will be participating in the art work. Data from their profile \u2014 age, gender and status updates \u2014 will be analyzed for narrative content, and potentially used to generate a short film. In exchange, each video that is generated is posted to participants\u2019 Facebook pages, locating their own individual \u2018story\u2019 within a much larger set of human concerns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>YouTube Channel: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/ihopetounderstand\" target='_blank'>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/ihopetounderstand<br \/>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Project Overview <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3QrnGkbZZk0\" target='_blank'>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3QrnGkbZZk0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sample video <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9VH1_qadJ-M\" target='_blank'>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9VH1_qadJ-M<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<\/tr>\n<td valign = \"top\"><strong>Credits:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>With thanks to DXARTS, James Hughes, Reid Swanson, Noel Paul and Martin Jarmick.<br \/>\n<\/tr>\n<td valign = \"top\"><strong>Technical:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Facebook application built using Python, ffmpeg, MySQL and Facebook API. Narrative algorithm built in Java by Reid Swanson. <\/tr>\n<td valign=\"top\"><strong>Reviews\/News:<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?p=939\">Art Monthly Review<\/a><\/ br><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/downloads\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/walsh_abstract.pdf');\"  href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/walsh_abstract.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Searching for the Real in Automated Self-Presentation: James Coupe&#8217;s Today, too, I experienced something I hope to understand in a few days (abstract)<\/a><\/ br><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?page_id=2010\">Imperica: Being Watched<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?p=1081\">Screening at Henry Art Gallery<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/artwork\/today-too-i-experienced-something-i-hope-to-understand-in-a-few-days\" target=\"_blank\">Entry in Art and Electronic Media<\/a><\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return hs.expand(this)\" href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/test_5_web.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-nZt5JGPc\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-57 alignleft\" title=\"ss\" src=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/test_5_web-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"ss\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return hs.expand(this)\" href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/test_4_4_web.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-nZt5JGPc\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-57 alignleft\" title=\"ss\" src=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/test_4_4_web-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"ss\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return hs.expand(this)\" href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/test_20_web.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-nZt5JGPc\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-53\" title=\"ss\" src=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/test_20_web-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"ir\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?p=778\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/thumbnail-for-excerpts\/tfe_no_thumb.png\" class=\"aligncenter wp-post-image tfe\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><p>A site-specific artwork that auto-generates narrative films based upon data collected from Facebook users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2288,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions\/2288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}