Intel's The Museum of Me
This digital age just gets stranger by the day doesn’t it? Now we can view our social media content in the form of a virtual museum exhibition…
Andrew Soar Exhibition
Japanese agency Projector Inc have created a unique concept, The Museum of Me, for Intel. It works by digesting all your information from Facebook and turning it into an online exhibition. Move over Redchurch Street and Vyner Street, there is a new exhibition that might just take pride of place on the next First Thursdays – The Museum of Me is a clever way that engages arts and culture and the socially active user. This is not going to set the arts critics rushing to buy the Andrew Soar Museum of Me catalogue, but it is an interesting way to spend two minutes of your life.
The show opens with title text bearing the user’s name, and then the premise for today’s show – “a journey of visualization that explores who I am.”
The Museum of Me 'Friends'
The exhibition then begins with galleries of images of your friends and the ones you interact with the most, pride of place on my wall fell to the lovely Nika Senjak, my brother Rob Soar and mates Wayne Boyaram and Rob Kent (ps. if you are the jumping girl – who are you so I can credit you too?). Moving into the adjoining room visitors are greeted by a wall of photos you have uploaded. Virtual art lovers are shown walking around the space and examining the wonderful imagery, which seems to be purely of me, with due reverence.
The Museum of Me 'Images' Wall
Later in the exhibit, there is a text installation, constructed from words found on your wall. Obviously, as with all aspects of the exhibition, the more stuff you have on your Facebook profile, the richer the show will be – my wall has a massive ‘NOW’ in the middle, I must say that a lot… strange!
The Museum of Me 'Words' Wall
Later you walk through a virtual ‘Likes’ room seeing video and images that you have liked in your Facebook past, before entering a room where a number of robot arms chuck images around a room. The exhibition then ends with a web of photos of friends, with the subject matter in the centre.
The Museum of Me 'Likes' Video Wall
The exhibition curator and artist (ok, you) can then share your museum exhibit back on Facebook and create your own take home catalogue of the show.
The Museum of Me Robots
The Museum of Me does raise a few concerns about privacy, which have obviously already been anticipated: the opening page states that Intel will not keep any of the content it takes onto the site, and won’t use it anywhere else. It is nonetheless unnerving to see all your images so easily appearing somewhere other than Facebook, but this only goes to prove that anything placed on such sites is never really that private.
The Museum of Me Catalogue
Check it out at museumofme.intel.com.
