Public Isolation Project

   What would it be like living in a glass house where everybody can see you? Literally, we are talking about a house with no curtains. These days, many architects design buildings that have large glass windows in order to enhance the natural light inside the buildings. In addition, some animal rights activists also did a performance of living in a glass house in order to denounce people’s unethical treatment of animals. This time, Christine Norine is ‘trapped’ in a glass house for one month for the purpose of a Public Isolation Project.

http://www.publicisolationproject.com/

   Public Isolation Project is kind of performance art consisting of two symbolic art pieces: Joshua Jay Eliott’s “An Examinable Life” and Christine Norine’s “the Future of Socializing.” The transparent window which enables people to view Christine’s life represents the current situation of modern people who have succumbed to the privacy of their home due to the comfort of the internet. People can now socialize through twitter, facebook, skype and other social networking websites without having to see the person face to face. Since Christine is unable to get out of the house and has no direct interaction with people, she can only communicate with her friends and family through these social networking websites. During the performance she will focus on examining her feelings and mental health, so that she can better understand how the social networking through the Internet affects her social life.

   It is a meaningful project to our society, given the fact that we are now witnessing ambivalent effects of the social networking websites. Thanks to these online services we can keep in touch with our friends and get information anywhere at anytime. On the other hand issues such as cyber-bullying and lack of privacy are increasing. People are aware of all these phenomenon, but there is no adequate solution to this problem. Since the positive effects are so enormous, some people tend to shrug off the negative impact of the social networking service as a trivial problem. It is inevitable to eliminate the problems because of the intrinsic prosperities of the internet – openness, connectivity, and fast diffusion. However, at least we can minimize the adverse impact. In order to come up with measures, more research must be conducted. In this sense, the Public Isolation Project has stepped off on the right foot of academic research on social networking services and also will open people up to think carefully about how to use the online services correctly.