My Self Portrait
I spent a long time kicking around the idea of tracking my path through the digital world, by recording my e-mail, IM, posts, and IP traffic. The whole concept of a digital persona, entirely a construct of our deliberate choosing, is interesting to me. I also had a catchy name - Mike Stein Online
Of course, that would have made my self portrait just a collection of my interactions over the course of a month or so, which seems kind of hollow.
After (reluctantly) abandoning the Mike Stein Online concept, I started thinking about what an ideal interactive experience would be. I really want the possiblity for each user to have a different experience. I also really liked Mike Brazil's first project, with the tinker toys that could be constructed in different ways. And I wanted to borrow from Jessie's 2nd project, where the order of the selected words changed the meaning of the puzzle.
This has led to my second Self Portait idea, which has it's own catchy name: MikeSpace (it's catchy when you think of it as a play on MySpace. At least, it is to me.)
At it's heart, MikeSpace is a mind map that the user can traverse. But MikeSpace is a mind map of my mind that the user is constructing as they go along. The user will have a view of some significant events in my mind. However, until the user bridges the gap between events, they will not be able to see the next event. The gaps between events will be bridged by placing down verb "bridges" between events. Not all bridges will be available between every event, and different bridges will result in a different reveal for an event. As more and more bridges are laid down, more events become avaialable for bridging.
I hope to show the mixed emotions that are attached to various events in my life, without hitting the user over the head with "But if you look at things this way..."
Also, I want to use a hacked Nintendo Power Glove for traversing the MikeSpace, because this is my self portrait and I think that'd be cool.