Early in december I was selected to be one of 20 artist groups to work on the 80 + 1 project for the Ars Electronica and Linz 09 festivities. The project I am being commissioned to create is called Grand Mutual Smiles. It is a two-way interactive installation that communicates between two parties through the transmission of images of smiling faces. Progressively captured pictures of smiling people are displayed on video screens at each installation site. The motivation is to encourage users to communicate across the internet in a non-verbal and humoristic way, by smiling. Both Linz in Austria and Thimphu in Bhutan will therefore be connected by real-time updating “smile” boards.
There are lots of logistic involved to get such a project of the ground, but I hope it all goes to plan as I’m very much interested to see how people react to the challenge of smiling for a machine…and seeing the undoubtedly hilarious results. The project should go live some time in early June 2009.