I want to _____ with you.

As John mentioned in an earlier post, prior to joining Sosolimited in June, I spent the past two years completing an MFA in the Design|Media Arts program at UCLA. During my time there, I created a series of works exploring the potential to use technology to alter social interactions and increase one’s sense of agency within the current network of social relations. The final project in the series was Inneract – a location-based mobile phone application that allows people to imagine and realize alternative interactions in the real world.

Inneract subverts standards of social behavior by creating an extra layer on top of normal social space. In this space, people can determine their own desired alternative interactions and make them known to others through a layer that only other users can see.

Basically, you can dream up any interaction you would like to have, and post it with your picture. These could be invitations to share a meal, discuss a certain topic, give a high-five, receive a face-lickin’ or anything else you may desire. Others nearby will see your invitation and can choose to engage. You can see the desired acts of everyone in the world, but you can only see the pictures of those within a mile of you (to reduce the creepiness factor). You can also choose to have your act visible only when the app is open, or have it displayed all the time for serendipitous interactions all day long.

I’ll write some more later about other projects I’ve created along the way, but I couldn’t be happier to be here now working with the team and exploring new mobile and social platforms for Soso projects!