Advanced Sculpture, 2014

Project 3: Interactivity

With the recent rise of the app of Yik Yak I wanted to change the way that we use this application.  I wanted to flooding the application with positivity and showing users that with anonymity comes a lot of responsibility. As college students at an honors college we should have enough maturity that it takes to handle those responsibilities. Although as we all know there are those who do not act accordingly.  I have witnessed many posts about vulgar, rude, and comments about other students, staff and faculty members which all remain completely anonymous but still very hurtful to the person it is aimed at.  In my opinion I think that this should not be allowed. Since the application was created for the use of college students I think it would be better if we used it to help each other, encourage each other and support each other. We are the generation of the digital age and have our phones and computers glued to us at all times.

My project allowed for people interacted by posting on a physical version of a timeline like the one in the Yik Yak application. But unlike the application I allowed them to cross things out that were wrong and wanted them spread more positive thinking. When they were given the choice to write something positive or to take something negative and correct it or turn it in to a positive people reacted more positively. Many people stated that they rather say something good then bad. They wanted to help me spread more positive comments and posts.  There were some people that said refused to participate when I asked them to because they liked how the application already was. One student explained to me that she felt the experience was very therapeutic after she wrote down something had said about her previously and crossed it out. She felt like she could finally do something about the mean and hateful words that someone had said about her.
Along with creating a physical timeline I wanted to change what was going on in the application. This is easier said then done. I had those who participated to add their yaks to application and to down vote the negative ones or to report them. Although you have little to no control over what is happening on the application I did notice how people were responding to the positive things in a positive manner. Usually people say rude or vulgar comments to anything that might sound ‘nice’ or like something a mom would say. People started to converse about how they started to use the application just because of the stigma it had attached to it. Others agreed that they were rude and had no problem with it. 

Overall I think that my project was successful in getting the word out there. A lot of people were very happy to see that I was doing a project on Yik Yak to invoke some kind of change. Visually what I created is nothing special or any real piece of art to my personal standards. It may have been interesting to create a bulletin board where people ‘post’ things over a couple weeks to see if they act the same way. Also I have to take in to account since I was sitting there mediating this what people may have written might be censored because it is not completely anonymous much like how the application works. Something that would have been really interesting is if I could have hacked into the application in a way to completely stop the negativity.