fbFaces by Joern Roeder & Jonathan Pirnay

JournalArt & Culture

fbFaces by Joern Roeder & Jonathan Pirnay

Privacy, accessibility of data, and overflow of information visualised...

Dealing with the issues of data accessibility, internet privacy, our willing online exhibitionism and the constant flood of information; Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay – students at Germany’s University of Visual Arts and Design Kassel – have created fbFaces, a fascinating installation that sees an entire room blanketed with the profile pictures of some 100,000 Facebook users. Using a JavaScript and PHP (they’re internet programming languages to the uninitiated) Facebook crawler, the duo have visualised the overwhelming daily flood of images, data and information by printing those profile images to a wallpaper that now engulfs a single room. Stand back and the “cloud of information” is indecipherable, chaotic and overpowering; move closer and the images become clearer, but you’re met with the realisation you can never see it all. Thought-provoking and so relevant as our lives become more digitally fractious, Roeder and Pirnay have created a timely and intelligent work…

fbFaces, by Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay fbFaces, by Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay fbFaces, by Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay fbFaces, by Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay fbFaces, by Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay