Facebook Intruder

Facebook Intruder (2012)

With this project I created an alter ego Facebook profile. With the profile I attempted to permeate the online social networks of complete strangers. In doing so, I’ve begun to gauge the legitimacy, pertinence and availability of social interactions that stay on Facebook having never begun with physical interaction. I chose Facebook as the forum for this investigation because of it’s overall popularity as well as the relative exclusivity of it’s social networks.

Below are examples of the screens shots and descriptions that I used to document the process:

 

8 – Commenting on a picture of one of my newly acquired Facebook friends.

 

14 – Although I was taking the friend-request process much slower that I did previously with the “Ferris” profile, Facebook still eventually intervened by no longer allowing the Max Gira profile to request friends. The duration of this limitation is not made clear although all other aspects of the profile still functioned.

 

15 – First conversation with a Facebook friend. The friendship was terminated by the other party soon after.

Social Media - Pre Internet

With my project Facebook Intruder, I aim to explore the permeability of online social networks (specifically Facebook) by way of a fabricated online profile. Executing this project and achieving its goals without the Internet would be impossible. The entire objective of the project is to gauge the legitimacy and pertinence of social interactions that stay online and never cross into physical interaction.

That being said, if the goals for the project were slightly altered, I imagine that a variant of it could be executed pre-internet through written letters and the post office. Who knows how often mailing a letter to a random person and striking up a dialogue actually happens, but its lack of immediacy would certainly make the line of dialogue between the parties much different than a line of dialogue between random people online. I figure doing this through mail to be how the concept of “pen-pals” was initially formed. In that regard, it’s not an unfamiliar concept.

Social Media Artist

Man Bartlett

Born: 1981

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

His work includes drawings, collages and online performance art.

Often often uses Twitter to communicate/carry-out his social media projects. Works include:

#TheseusHand - A project where he had people tweet pictures of hand jesters which form either a one or a zero. The images were then used to create a series of instructions.

#GreyMatter - A project where people contacted him via Twitter or in an art gallery and told Man where they were from. Man would then then represent this place by tying a piece of colored string to a dowel rod.

#24hClerk - A project where people contacted him via twitter and told him their dreams. He would then "price" these dreams on a chart.

manbartlett.com