Hypnotic MOMA Video Project Gets Content From Dating Sites

Posted by Bryan Christian

Holy smoke! Someone figured out how to make online dating attractive! From the statement by artists Jonathan Harris & Sep Kamvar's statement:

I Want You To Want Me chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, gathering new data from a variety of online dating sites every few hours.  The system searches these sites for certain phrases, which it then collects and stores in a database.  These phrases, taken out of context, provide partial glimpses into people’s private lives.  Simultaneously, the system forms an evolving zeitgeist of dating, tracking the most popular first dates, turn-ons, desires, self-descriptions and interests.

I Want You To Want Me will be on display at the New York Museum of Modern Art until May 12. 


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Posted Apr 18 2008, 04:18 PM

Comments

andalusian said:

Possibly one of the most beautiful things I've seen on ye olde Scanner. It really makes all the striving, emailing. awkwardness seem coherently and warmly human.

April 18, 2008 5:15 PM

tunah said:

The video was gorgeous and I don't know if it was the music or something, but I got really sad while watching it. Of course I went and searched out the music (Personal by Stars) and the song is also one of the saddest songs I've ever come across. Don't really know what Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar were trying to convey with this project, but it made this entire online dating deal sound completely tragic to me.

April 21, 2008 8:31 AM

About Bryan Christian

Bryan Christian has worked as a writer for Epicurious, GenArt and ID magazine; a web producer for WWD and Condé Nast; and a cameraman for his friends. He's married and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

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