This project led me to define a common question: What have we lost? When we text before we will call someone, we lose all the nuances with their voice. We spend less time on average with each other in meat space and more time in digital textual space. How might the feedback in the form of an animal inform the writing, commenting and the general disconnect we feel when trying to connect to others over digital divides.
While working on this I was able to experience the pure and sometimes frustrating joy when writing your own algorithm. Writing a script that scores emails to build characters based on word frequency and tone. Generally our emails don't follow a story arc, but we all know the feeling of sending out little one line gremlins or a lumbering mammoth of blame and aggression.
Exploring the tone of an email through generative character design
Searching through emails by tone
Prototype of an angry email
Prototype of an angry and an apologetic email
I asked my thesis advisor to please write me the most scathing email and sweet email she ever write. The above video is a represenation of that.