R. Luke DuBois's "More Perfect Union"

R. Luke DuBois has an interesting Rhizome Commission proposal. His More Perfect Union creates averaged photos of online dating participants as categorized by congressional district.



DuBois writes:

According to a 2006 Pew Research Report, 20 million Americans make use of online dating services, and nearly a third of Americans know someone who has used one to find a partner. In the three years since this report was published, this number has surely only increased, and represents a significant trend in how people find romantic connection in the Internet age. As a specialized form of social networking, online dating is a well-established and well-studied phenomenon in the United States, dating back to computer dating services in the late 1970s. A significant part of the ritual of online dating consists of preparing a profile, in which you describe yourself, your personality, habits, hobbies, tastes, and, on most services, include an image of yourself. You also use the service's API to describe (either in narrative or using multiple-choice fields) what you feel your want in a romantic partner. Online dating forces us to engage in a vulnerable act of articulating our self-identity in a semi-public forum for the express purpose of being wanted, and to read a thoughtful dating profile is to read the precarious expression of someone else's desires.

A More Perfect Union consists of a large hybrid artwork based around the information found on online dating sites in the United States. I've already begun studying this data, downloading 16.7 million online dating profiles this summer and studying the information for artistic inspiration. The project takes the form of a census, where the profiles are sorted by zip code and placed into the appropriate U.S. Congressional District. The profiles from these districts are then analyzed for trends and will incorporate text, statistics, maps, and imagery drawing from the photos people include in their dating profiles, derived in inspiration from the gestalt image work current in computer graphics (image morphing), but dating all the way back to Francis Galton's composite portraits, made in the 19th Century.

Incidentally, you can see my own Rhizome Commission proposal here.