I looked at Hayoon’s Looking Outwards 07: information Visualization post on Jonathan Harris’ work “We feel fine”. I think the work is very well presented and visually stunning, but I question the artistic decision for how the algorithm attributes emotions to the text strings. I think more nuanced aspects of speech inflection (like sarcasm) and other semantics are lost when converted to text, especially in different contexts. I think Hayoon does a good job of addressing the complexity of the topic and admiring the creators’ sensibilities. I think she could’ve gone more into speculating the algorithmic or functional aspects of the project, but she captures and describes the project and the artistic influences well.
“We feel fine” by Jonathan Harris, 2009, c/o Seth Kamvar
http://number27.org/wffbook