We’ve been asked to collaborate using Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s website hitRECord.org on a multimedia artifact based upon an element of contemporary internet culture. Considering the week that it was, an obvious move would be toward the relatively new Social Media “craze” that has swept through the country over the past fortnight known, infamously at this point, as #NeckNominate. I won’t delve into the details of the trend because I think that, by now, it has been thoroughly exhausted by all forms of the media. Indeed it is tragic that two young people have been killed in Ireland trying to conform to the outrageous trend and this is surely a signal that Social Networking combined with Peer Pressure can be a deadly accelerator for vulnerable and easily inclined humans’ irrationalities when it comes to the need to fit in. I feel, however, that this “trend” has run it’s course. I believe it was a flash in the pan – and just 3 days after the weekend during which the two deaths occurred, the topic is now virtually non-existent on my Facebook news feed. I think that by the coming weekend, tragic #NeckNominate will be nothing but a cold reminder of just how much momentum Social Media can add to a new trend – that it can be born and die again within one week. But I digress.
My choice of topic for this collaboration has stemmed from my personal affection for creativity. I have, only recently, joined the Smart Phone trend that is Snap Chat. I’ve found myself more interested in the feature of the app that allows the user to utilize a basic colour palette and their finger on the touch screen as a paint brush to add creative essence and humor to their snaps. These small and simple, creative pieces of communication are known within the Snap Chat community as Snapsterpieces. Snapsterpieces have managed to find their own niche within social media among people like me who like to create. Snap Chat provides a great means of sharing your doodles among your friends in a bid to make them laugh or smile – and it’s easy too! A mess-free, back-to-basics tool kit and a diverse, photographic canvas on which to paint? Of course I’ll spend my 50 minute commute to college fiddling with it. And I’m not the only one: http://www.oninstagram.com/snapsterpiece.
My idea is to first collect as many Snapsterpieces from the public as possible. I will be appealing for people to donate their Snapsterpieces and they will hopefully feel encouraged to join in on the collaboration. After that I hope that we will have a means for creating an artefact based on the notion of quick art as a means of communication and how this might effect future communication trends. If anything, I might just find an answer for why I spend 20 minutes working on something that my peers will only get to view for a maximum of 10 seconds – if they’re even interested in looking for that long.
The first step I’ve taken to get this project off the ground is releasing my own record on hitRECord. Initially I am appealing for donations of Snapsterpieces of all sorts. I started this record 4 days ago and so far I’ve had zero responses so I need to amp up my appeal. I will now begin tweeting about my appeal daily using the hashtags #SnapChat, #Snapaterpiece and #hitRECord. I will share the link among my Facebook friends and I will appeal to my class mates to join me on my mission. I will also contribute to existing records to get my name out there as an active member – maybe then people will be more inclined to help me in return.
Hopefully by the time my next post on this topic is up, I will be joined by 2 equally as inspired class mates who are willing to join in on the fun.
Sian Gilsenan - Multimedia Projects 