Abstract

If you were a member of the Match.com community in 2005, you expressed interest in another member by sending them a "wink." If someone online reciprocated interest, they also had the option to "wink" at you. In Match.com parlance, "winking" online established personal connections similar to those achieved in the real world--a wink is a facial gesture used to communicate or connect with another person. My thesis, entitled Wink ; ), sought to engage both the online and real world power of this human signal, as a means to understand how I could be myself--a liberal feminist with a sexual preference for my own gender, while still remaining connected, on some meaningful level, to my Italian parents, who held strong conventional values about the role of a daughter within a family and women in society. For my thesis exhibition, I created an interactive maze that functioned like an analog or 3-dimensional version of the online dating filter, Match.com. Participants entered the maze, made choices based on visual images which then led them through the maze. On display at the exits were images of my actual online profile, a wall of tongue-tied cherry stems, and coffee mugs that represented the online internet participation of my dating experiences, as well as the real life coffee dates. Gallery visitors not only walked the maze but were able to fill out a brief survey along their journey and use it as a ballot. They placed their ballots into boxes marked 'yes" or 'no,' in answer to the question posed at the end of the maze: "Are you interested in me?"

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Installations (Art)--Themes, motives; Installations (Art)--Technique; Maze puzzles; Online dating--Pictorial works

Publication Date

5-2-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Advisor

Not listed

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works in December 2013. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: N6494.I56 I36 2010

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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