We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion. Review by Rob Myers.
We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar Scribner Book Company, December 2009 ISBN 1439116830 "We Feel Fine - An Almanac Of Human Emotion" is a hardback book that in just under 300 pages of well designed montages, data visualisations, diagrams, illustrations and text presents and analyses the data gathered by the We Feel Fine project. Started in 2005 and launched in early 2006 by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, We Feel Fine is based around a database assembled using a webcrawler that searches the blogosphere for statements of the form "I feel" or "I feel like". Any matches are stored along with as much contextual data as the webcrawler can find (a photograph nearby in the blog post, the poster's age, gender, and location, local weather). The database contained twelve million such entries by the time the book was published. Harris and Kamvar are admirably candid in laying out the history, methodology, technology and in the case of the book's production even the finances of their project. The code listings included in the book are tantalising glimpses into how the We Feel Fine server works, allowing a rare chance for students and artists to study such a system, and are licenced under the GPLv3. The book is under the obscure but principled Creative Commons "Founders Copyright" licence which will automatically expire the copyright on the book in twenty years time. This is all invaluable for critique and study of the project by artists, academics and anyone with an interest in art and technology, and more artists should do it. http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=371 -------------> Other Info: A living, breathing, thriving networked neighbourhood... We are on Twitter http://twitter.com/furtherfield Other reviews/articles/interviews http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php Furtherfield - online media arts community, platforms for creating, viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. http://www.furtherfield.org HTTP Gallery - physical media arts Gallery (London). http://www.http.uk.net Netbehaviour - an open email list community engaged in the process of sharing and actively evolving critical approaches, methods and ideas focused around contemporary networked media arts practice. http://www.netbehaviour.org Furtherfield Blog - shared space for personal reflections on media art practice. http://blog.furtherfield.org VisitorsStudio - real-time, multi-user, online arena for creative 'many to many' dialogue, networked performance and collaborative polemic. http://www.visitorsstudio.org/x.html Furthernoise - an online platform for the creation, promotion, criticism and archiving of innovative cross genre music and sound art for the information & interaction of the public and artists alike. http://www.furthernoise.org _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
