At the request and selection of a remote viewers logged
onto the artwork site and to a computer station just outside the installation
room, Public Mood Ring software searches for the mood of a current
public issue represented by instant Internet news text. A series
of animated web pages allow users to pick a news story and a cultural color
model, and then displays the process and results of the search engine
as the mood outcome.
In version 2.0 of the software, news stories cascade
off the world wide web from a live Yahoo RSS feed. Popup text reveals story
titles.
A variety
of
categories
can
be chosen. Stories can be placed on the righthand platform to reveal more
of the news story text. The desired story can then be chosen as the final
selection for mood
sensing.
online:
In
the next window a variety of cultural color models appear as icons for the
participant to select. They include color systems generated by Mood Ring
reactions, Feng Shui color values, Doppler Radar color keys, Tibetian Buddhist
symbolism, Zulu Beadwork and so on.
In
the final screen emotive words are sifted from the news text to see which
of the fourteen moods of the mood ring is dominant within the article. Selected
words flow into a centrifuge till the mood is identified. Once it is revealed,
the title of the mood emerges in its corresponding cultural color (see above)
as
this hue is sent to the LED lights in the installation space.A live webcam
view in the lower right allows participants to view the changing color at the
exhibition. The example above
and below changes the lights from green to blue-green. The new color temperature
then emerses
exhibition visitors in a light temperature that encapsulates personal news
identification, public
news issue,
cultural color value, and architectural ambience.
