“Can we use live twitter data to monitor and visualise the sentiment people have towards a certain subject? Would it change our behaviour online?”

• Live Stream / Visual Installation

• Working prototype

• Email Campaign

In keeping with my fascination for using data as a material for creativity I created this art installation and Xmas themed campaign for Method.

The hypothesis was simple. Can we use live twitter data to monitor and visualise the sentiment people have towards a certain subject? In this case Xmas.

I worked closely with a creative technologist to execute the concept using Unity and a free twitter API.

The end result was a living ‘star’ - a dynamic digital artefact that changed shape, colour and velocity depending on the current sentiment of messages using a series of holiday related hash tags.

The prototype was live streamed on the internet and also formed part of an art installation in the Method London and New York studios over the festive period.

The star was customisable and could easily be changed to focus on other topics simply by changing the hashtag data it ingested. E.g. We trialled it on a few ‘Brexit’ hash tags with predictable results.

The project also triggered a number of new questions and potential applications in areaas such as anti cyber bullying. For example: If we can see the effect of our online behaviour in real-time, would we alter our behaviour?