proposal

Propose a topic for you final project. We will be discussing final projects (or papers) in class - please be prepared to succinctly describe the topic and approach you have in mind.

so, musing on the aspect of fashion and changing signals, i was thinking of how electronic media and the internet has rapidly increased the rate of change of signals of certain forms or materials.

for example, fashions stemming from written materials--news articles, ideas and creation, slang and language--ostensibly accelerate change as technology shifted from personal paper correspondance to mass media periodicals + dailies to current instantaneous online delivery and distribution of electronic-based literary information. now, instead of having to take time to clip articles, photocopy or transcribe, or set up your own press, you can now easily scan, email, duplicate, link, or publish without much cost at all. the cost is in the trend-seeking and trend-setting research, but the transistional cost of dissemination and integrated reinterpretation (primary + secondary + tertiary sources all sourced + referenced online) has all but been minimized. and not only has the cost decreased for distribution, but also for production... anyone with a computer and printer can easily download a document and print it for their own records. with publishing tools available widely, people can layout and design their own magazines or poetry or books on different kinds of paper, ink, etc. because cost has decreased for both distribution and production of the written word, public iteration has multiplied and therefore the urge to renew writable/readable signals can both increase and be fulfilled.

in an artistic vein, a similar argument can be made for music or visual art. neither of these is primarily an electronic medium, but they've been well adapted to an electronic network. in the age of the LP, the fashion of music was mostly limited to radio stations, personal familiarity with certain records, music rewiewers and journalists, and attendance to live shows. but then once cassette tapes were developed, listeners had the power to digest and reform the music. i'm guessing that the music consumer's ability to duplicate, splice, and mix tapes at will accelerated (or at least roiled) the then-normal fashion cycles of music. and now with mp3s, easily distributed through mass media means (itunes, amazon) but also easily modified and augmented with available software, music-consumers can trade, reinterpret, reference, and reinvent the status quo. public mashups and remixes can ably shift music fashions, and the on-demand access to bios, discographies, and sample tracks expand people's musical appetite and choice for change. in terms of visual art, or graphic design (maybe sculpture doesnt work too well here, but just two-dimensional fixtures), reception was limited to gallery attendance, and then print/press reproductions. now, not only can images be scanned, photographed, and distributed online, but easily modified, augmented, combined and reinterpreted, and visually referenced. the availability of information and decreased cost of creation, i would argue, overturns the fashion of visual art with increased rapidity. for example, filtered and cropped photographs were stylish until people realized how easy it was to do in photoshop; retro vector art became cool again, wielded mostly by high-tech flash and illustrator artists, but now it's been diffused through a plethora of slick websites and subsequent templates. juxtaposed balances between organic and computational art continuously renew.

of course, the quality of music or art is not the same electronically as offline (limitations of compression and resolution, as well as sensorial experiences like the smell of a painting or the heft of an LP), but the fashion of ideas can still fully develop and turn-over. the process can be seen as duplication to collaging (juxtaposing, arranging) to full remastery (mashing, editing, sampling, flavored republishing). electronic media and the internet have decreased the cost for an individual to control a trend's trajectory...

so, these examples form the motivation behind development of a process that would accelerate the fashion cycle for clothing by putting more control in the hands of the individual. right now, even with all the materials available publicly (fashion magazines, fashion online articles + blogs, fashion photography + illustration) or not so (insider information at paris/milan/toyko, industry journals, fashion show attendance), the goods available to the consumer are still limited by what is produced and manufactured and sold by clothing designers and companies. if i read (and blog about!) an article about certain silhouettes or colors or styles for clothing, i cant do anything except (a) abstract the clothing through sketches or writings, (b) wait until i can order it from a manufacturer, or (c) attempt to reconstruct using patterns, fabric, sewing machine, and all that knowledge on how to make a garment. this is akin to wanting to print an article from online, and setting up a printing press and hand-cutting paper from an paper-roll-store in order to physically reproduce it. where music and art and text have found electronic formats and ways to slice and dice the medium, clothing fashion has not yet reached that level. right now, individuals may express their taste or reinterpretation of clothing styles by clever juxtaposition (a feminine lace paired with heavy boots, a 70's scarf with cybernetic pants, wearing a man's tie as a belt), or augmentation of existing forms (iron-on letters, cut-off sleeves, adding a contrasting hem). but still, everything is still sourced by the companies, or one has to learn very specialized skills in garment fabrication. clothing-wise, we're still in the age of mix tapes and cut-and-paste collages; there's no easy infrastructure to easily modify or remix, to discover, distribute, and recreate at low cost to the individual. i would like to see if clothing fashion cycles have reached a plateau, even with our media saturation levels... fashions in news might have a weekly or even daily turnaround time; fashions in clothing can switch seasons? mid-seasons? could it possibly be any more often than that?

how might the clothing fashion cycle be reformed, accelerated, or augmented? would a personal clothing fabrication + publication system give control of the cycle's longevity and dissemination? how could this be implemented or designed? this is where things like lasercut patterns, printable textures and colors on fabric, and an electronic garment format could be discussed and developed. perhaps buying fabric materials (plain, medium weight cotton) could be as easy as ordering plain bright while letter-size medium weight paper from the office supply store.

because clothing design remains a physical, three-dimensional art, it might be harder to change or augment its cycle. architecture, the most physical and material art, might be the most difficult. how has architecture fashion budged since the mass media age? the electronic / internet age? could we ably formulate a way in which architecture ideas and constructs could be ably harnessed for more rapid reinterpretation and redistribution? it wouldnt be huge, but i'd like to touch upon the constraints imposed by physicality, and see if it truly is the main hindrance and correlation to solid, established fashion cycles. or is it not the issue of physicality, but identity and personality? we sense and perceive art of limited dimensions, but we clothe ourselves and live in physical spaces; is that intimacy also something to be considered?

people markets

Look at an online dating site - match.com, nerve.com, etc. - a search in google for "online dating" will yield lots. Think about what qualities are people trying to assess, what are the signals they are using to do so.

The world of online dating is a classic signaling system, in which personal essays and photos are the signals - but what are the qualities they are meant to represent? Drawing from the readings above, describe the process in terms of signaling.

here we go, delving into the nerve personals (and of course, not being distracted by the articles along the way)...

some immediate, self-reported input: age, sex, location, vital physical stats (size + color), personal vices, job, education, ethnicity, religion, relationship status, children status, sexual orientation, sexual intention, and traits desired in mate.

since all of the questionnaire kind of fields (age, ethnicity, children) are brainless to complete, with merely checking off of boxes or inputting an arbitrary number, there is relatively more room for deception within them. however, most of them could be crosschecked against a photograph (although, truth in a picture can also be easily malleable). however, simple stats like this are a natural way to run search queries and to more easily sort and categorize the lot.

depending on how choosy they are in describing their ideal mate, you could infer how selective (could be read as having high standards, fetishesque preferences, of unreachable status, or closemindedness) or open (could be read as tolerant, adventurous, or desperate) they are in the discernment of potential mates.

the alias and headline become the 'first impression' most personals browsers face in a list, so there's pressure to be insightful, eyecatching, or interest-piquing here. to pick a few examples, aliases include muchrandomness, thefinalerack, and laterz_13. without even looking at the profile or picture, one might infer some qualities of the posters, such as poetic or spontaneous, self-deprecating or modest, and fratboyish and partyloving, respectively. the headlines are also a great showcase for succinct humor ("i want a zebra...zelda looks lonely. i want a zebra.", profundity ("the storm starts when the drops start dropping"), slogan ("i've got places to go, people to see"), banality ("i like walks on the beach)", or wit ("Better than chocolate cake.").

the online activity ("last active ... ") indicator may be a good signal to see if the person is internet-savvy, or obsessive about checking up on their personals profile, or antisocially computer-bound, or a frequent reader of nerve.com, or even that someone else might be using their machine under their account. the signal of activity, although absolute, is ambiguous in its meaning and can be interpreted in differing ways, bad or good.

freeform essay topics include: Last great book I read:, Most humbling moment, Favorite on-screen sex scene, Celebrity I resemble most, Best or worst lie I've ever told, If I could be anywhere at the moment, Song or album that puts me in the mood, The five items I can't live without, Fill in the blanks:____ is sexy; ____ is sexier, In my bedroom, you'll find, Why you should get to know me, More about who I'm looking for.

as an atmospheric slant of taste, nerve.com tints everything with a tongue-in-cheek brashness of sexuality, with provocative profiles as de rigeur and more risqué sorts of writings. however, because of its design and slickness, nerve manages an attempt to showcase individuals as sexy, smart, and attractive as possible.

qualities i think are salient to display + signals utilized to publicly channel them:

appearance and attractiveness.
here, of course the photograph is a significant factor. however, images can be easily digitally altered, beautified, or even falsified by either identity (it's another person) or time (this was about 10 years and 20 pounds earlier). however, between a photograph (several together or a gallery are more convincing) and the physical statistics of hair color and height, one gets a pretty good idea of what someone's appearance looks like. the photograph becomes a powerful tool when one wields it not only like an album, but an artistic display. for example, this one guy's profile has three pictures: one traditional portrait-style which is clear and self-explanatory, one where he's doing a handstand in the outdoor wilderness which indicates his adventurous spirit, and a highly stylized and artsy-blurry-colorful group shot. not only do you get a pure physical presence, but also a personal representation of self.

sexual activity and history.
well, sexual orientation and history of children or past relationships would be a good start. flirty or suggestive answers to some of the essay questions might imply a more sexually forward perspective. however, i have a suspicion that many profiles who feel empowered and liberated to write witty, provocative things online might have some troubles or awkwardness channeling the same sexual energy in real life. i have a feeling though that none of the profilers on nerve.com are prudish or frigid, since nerve.com is such a sexually experimental website. this guy definitely is trying to put on the moves before the moves even started moving: "In my bedroom, you'll find Me, a big ass bed, and the stairway to heaven."

health, fitness.
photographs of people doing active stuff (participating in physically active things, wearing exercise clothing) or more physical indications (showing some skin, exposing muscles or curves, wearing body-conscious clothing, good skin) becomes a good signal for being healthy. also, writings about health habits (vegetarianism, gym adherence, going camping every fall) indicates levels of fitness. however, as brought up often, pictures can deceive (that sporty hunk in the photo might have turned muscle into fat after several seasons thereafter), or self-reported factoids might not be entirely true ("i go to the gym" could mean "i go to the gym about once a month").

genre of lifestyle. hobbies, interests.
this probably is the best quality reflected from the essay questions. between favourites in books, music, and movies, "items cant live without", and "if i could be anywhere," readers can form a personality between the lines. by mere cultural awareness, you can probably infer everything from religious adherence (he reports he's jewish, but his favorite meal is bacon and eggs) to political slants (favorite book: america by jon stewart) to artistic flavors (favorite music: rap-reggae) to unforgettable items ("wi-fi"). the package becomes even sweeter if the information is given in an individual style, through witty or poetic or nontraditional means.

education, intelligence.
although one can input past education and jobs (and past rhode scholarships), i believe the best indicator of intelligence is in correct spelling and grammar (or lack thereof), good presentation style, vocabulary usage, and poetic intrigue. not only are people looking for facts and figures in the profile, but also very much in the delivery of such goods. you might also be able to glean from certain books or lifestyles the person favors, war and peace over da vinci code.

more below... i'll finish shortly.

financial independence, resources.

family background, roots.

sensitivity, kindness.

self-confidence.

one thing that's interesting is the option to create multiple profiles on one account. you can transform into coffee casual, friends with benefits, sassy swinger, or marriage material in a simple switch of identity.

What are the costs of writing a profile - terms of effort? money (here are some notes on how pay sites impose useful costs)?

writing a profile is the single most difficult part of posting, due to the high cost of time and effort to create a public persona that is simultaneously attractive, unique, specific, accepting yet discerning, witty, approachable, and beating out the rivalries.

for a truly effectively written profile, one must sink much time and thought into it. the more intelligent or well-crafted a profile appears, a high-prestige individual has a much higher proclivity to reading or responding. the profiles that seem rushed, ill-thought, or simple indicate someone who failed to put enough time and effort into their writing. the quality given off is carelessness and thoughtlessness; if someone doesn't even care about their own online persona, why would they extend that to care for anyone else? profound, poetic, or prolific profiles, on the other hand, indicate intelligence, education, artistic craft, and patience. not only do readers get a better idea of who the writer is through mere Q's and A's, they can form much higher-level assessments from the profile's overall style or aura.

money may be a cost directly (pay sites) or indirectly (the time spent setting up and writing the profile is an opportunity cost for other activities). if sites require subscriptions or fees, this may be a good deterrent to fake profiles (spam) or casual users who are curious to see what's out there but who aren't willing to invest their own profile into the system. you also may be screening out those who can't financially afford such a service, married folks (since credit card statements might reveal truths), people with bad credit or who don't believe in plastic money, or commitment-phobics.

other sorts of costs include educational background (squaredating, for instance, only allows alumni from ivy league schools), in-the-know information (i would argue that nerve personals are a tad more obscure than match.com), or easy network accessibility. one might also desire to create a profile that differs from their real-life identity, either for reasons of appearing more attractive (putting the spin on one's job), doing it for fun (i'll try something new--buddhism!-- and see who i meet), or shielding their profile from being revealed from browsing friends and family.

What are the costs of including a photo? What is the function of the photo? Is physical appearance a signal or a quality - and is that different than its function in the face to face world?

the technical costs of posting a photo is (1) accessibility to a digital camera or a film camera + developed prints + scanner + software, (2) figuring out things like cropping, resizing, and resolution, and (3) color-correcting, removing red-eye, airbrushing, or more photoshop edits. for those without a digital camera (which is a relatively high monetary cost), step 1 might be a hassle to assemble all the materials. i personally think step 2 is the biggest pain, to resize and format for a certain context, which takes time and patience and a bit of computer memory. step 3 has a high learning curve, with those who are photoshop-savvy with definite advantage, and yet has the highest benefit since cleverly implemented photograph edits can alter one's appearance to be significantly more attractive.

within the context of the photograph itself, there are many costs within and without. (it's said that every little trivial detail within a fashion advertisement photograph is planned and intentional; absolutely nothing is a mistake.) in a photograph for a personals profile, the clothes, hair, makeup that are on the person may be expensive or exclusive or well-tailored; the setting may be somewhere exotic to indicate travel or outdoors to indicate adventurousness; being shown in a crowd of friends infers popularity and social activity; and background objects such as pets, cars, or bedroom tell more of personal life details. also, the photograph itself as medium of representation signfies plenty: an abstracted black-and-white off-center portrait screams "i'm a moody artist" while a bright-flash crammed-drunk-heads pic says "i love partying".

the function of the online photograph includes (1) indirectly showing access to image capture tools and software and knowledge to manipulate them, (2) physical appearance, (3) props (objects, people, or worn accessories) to illustrate lifestyle, prestige, or activities, (4) personality through representational style, and (5) with a gallery, showing different views or facets of the person.

here, i believe the strongest signal is not in the person's pure physical appearance but in the way that it's expressed to the viewers. the signal is how, not what. the mood of the photograph, the inclusions and exclusions, the moment that it's capturing... it's almost like discussing a piece of work at a museum. here, the artist is the profiler, and the viewer becomes the audience, guessing and judging what the artist is trying to express in his or her creation. because every photograph published includes an element of selection and craft, they should be interpreted as such.

this is slightly different from the real world, because an online photograph becomes a very specific framing of a person, a snapshot in which to represent an entire person. a lifestyle is boiled down to a handful of images; each one should express something very specific and significant. offline, you take in everything about the person at once; you get their physical appearance, voice, possessions, manners, environment, lunchbox, everything. the person has less control over what is and what is not perceived by others. there's more of a general context or aura perceived by taking all disparate elements together to form an impression that's more organic, variable, and comparable to others. online, the persona remains static and discrete; each online image therefore increases in its representational value.

What are the costs to the receivers? What are the assessment signals in these sites? What signals denote qualites mainly by convention?

if the dating site requires all users to have memberships (signing up, creating a profile) before viewing or responding, receivers first suffer the costs that all profilers do (taking time to write something attractive, posting a photo, paying a subscription, etc.). this might make them more educated on how to read profiles, i.e. knowing better how difficult it is to advertise oneself intelligently, what's entailed with selecting a photograph, and how easy it can be to twist certain facts.

a profiler's level of deception can vary, from lying about location (okay, so he really lives in wellesley, not boston proper) to sinful habits (maybe she imbibes a little more than to be classified as a social drinker) to relationship status (posting as a single when really in a committed relationship). therefore, the cost to the receiver can run shallow to deep, depending on the severity of lie coupled with the openness or forgiveness of the reciever. it may be a matter of inconvenience (say, the location), or disappointment (thinking someone is truly of a religious faith when they practically aren't), or vast deception (not knowing the other is polygamous). some online daters know to take everything with a grain of salt, aware of the ease of online deception, and use time as an indicator to prove or disprove certain assumptions; these people don't immediately invest much resources at the onset. however, receivers who may be a little more gullible or naive may invest much more resources (money, time, loveydovey thoughts) immediately; in this case, deception ("i knew he was too good to be true!") results in sunk costs, broken hearts, and in the worst cases, permanently altered lives (pregnancies, STDs, run-ins with the law, disownment, outcasting).

assessment signals: spelling, grammar, vocabulary, artistry, length and breadth of profile, timeliness of message responses, last online activity, lifespan of that particular profile, alias, headline. here, the qualities are much more cerebral, and a well-written profile is high-cost and relatively difficult to replicate if one does not own the qualities of intelligence and self-expression. timely responses indicate the person keeps good tabs on their profile and invests time into their dating identity as well as time to other dating candidates. as far as online activity + user lifespan goes, qualities inferred might range from obsessive to conscientious to experienced to newbie, but the costs to constantly log in to one's website account or to create a new user profile (especially on a pay site) remain high.

convention signals: self-reported data, photographs, self descriptions, testimonies. here, the cost to deceive are very low, since there is no good way to enforce a truthful description. most moderated sites only can screen for inappropriate obscenities, not white lies. photographs may or may not portray the actual user, and image editing is now easy and rampant. testimonies from other users may be helpful, but usually they're inside jokes, abnormally positive, or completely irrelevant.

What are some kinds of deception that could occur (if you can't think of any, trying searching for "online bad dates")? What mechanisms are in place now for minimizing this?

examples of deception can pretty much crop about anywhere. everything from the wrong body type to the wrong reported career to the wrong gender. someone can seem very gregarious and witty online, but translate into a shifty, socially awkward person in the flesh. a photograph can show someone quite attractive and surrounded by cool, fashionable things, yet offline the person can project a vastly different image without the artful cropping and high contrast filter. also, perhaps the profile isn't even written by the person at all; someone else is commissioned or requested to write, a la cyrano de bergerac, in the name of another. even worse, they could plagiarize from another user's attractive profile. i described some examples of deception on the receiver costs entry, but there are thousands of channels in which a wrong assumption or an effectively spun entry could lead to surprise or disappointment.

minimizing deception means increasing the cost for being dishonest while decreasing the cost for being honest. cost increases might include a subscription fee, lengthy lengthy profile inputs (like eharmony.com), harse penalties if caught plagiarizing or significantly misrespresenting onself, or a well-designed reputation system (such as greatboyfriends.com). decreasing the cost, or providing benefits, for truthful profiles includes perks for those selected to write dating blogs (nerve personals), more positive feedback from the community, and perhaps more tokens (lavalife.com) for emails or chats to reward successful dates or through a gift-giving mechanism.

Could information be shared among the participants? Would this be helpful? How could you redesign the system to allow for this? Think about the reputation systems we discussed in class. How would this impose costs on deception?

reputation systems! there could be testimonies from other people, such as on crush27 or thefacebook or greatboyfriends, but like in the reputation systems, the testimonies should be specific and focused on certain aspects of a person, rather than an overall assessment of positive or negative. perhaps the best testimonies would be from previous romantic partners, since they would have the best judgment on how the profiler really stacks up in a relationship, but then again, how could you fully trust the words of someone that was either rejected or the rejector of a past relationship? there odds of revenge or past grudges might be higher than normal. also, who's to enforce the truthfulness of the rater? statements like "he says he's 27 online but he's really 35, i peeked at his driver's license" are of different helpfulness than "he claims to be liberal but he's against gay marriage!" people aren't more subjective as when they're eying another person in a relationship setting.

i dont think it's altogether fair for a profiler to deceive online, but somehow i dont think it's fair either to have public displays of catty disappointments of another, of everyday human fallibility. maybe you could design something like references (such as degrees or friends on social networks) that someone could talk to or message to ask specific questions about a certain profiler. similar to references listed on a job application, you'd want to only recruit those references who are close, willing to help out, but also not a suspiciously close friend or family member. of course, these references could definitely string along the lies of deception, but crosschecking among separate sources might decrease the likelihood of this happening. this is also similar to asking favors on linked-in; people help out because they know that their friend will help out in later times. also, specific questions for references can glean more relevant information than blatant published public service announcements like "she doesn't know how to match her bags to shoes!"

How is dating similar or different from other types of "people markets"? Any employment situation is potentially such a market, as is the market for tennis partners, book club members, etc. The costs of deception differ in these cases, as do the structure of the market (are there repeated interactions? is information likely to be shared? what is the relationship among competitors? [Read Gates and Nissen for additional examples]

dating is such a complex system because people can be viciously strategic, possessive, deceptive, and altogether unmanagable in the mating game. there are different styles of relationships and intentions (short-term dating, marriage partners, one-night stands), to different attitudes and perspectives on dating, to knowledge and discretion on what to reveal and hide online and offline, immediately and with time. the social network is manipulated to faciliate (meeting people through people) as well as disciminate (competing against nearby rivals). and in general, people tend to seriously date one person at a time, so one someone is taken, they're off the market for any others.

[i'll use finding a singer for a band as the example to contrast with here.]

differing costs of deception: someone wanting a singer may deceive with their musicianship, technical proficiency, capital, bookings, performance facilities, and style/genre, but this may be crosschecked by sticking the guitarist's or drummer's name in google, for instance, to see what other projects they might have participated in, and quering what other sorts of existing bands they'd classify themselves similar to. musicianship can be verified from listening to a demo (which may be cleverly engineered in a way that a photograph can be edited), or a live set. however, the cost to motivation to start a band (very high in terms of time and money), collect band members who are all enthusiastic, and the artistic training involved are high enough that deception would remain relatively low. musicality and tonefulness might be easier to assess immediately than, say, gentlemanliness throughout a long-term relationship.

although both scenarios entail some sort of commitment, playing with a band remains an artistic project or collective, whereas dating someone branches out into all sorts of social ripples, such as adding to one's romantic history while having knowledge circle about friendship circles and social networks. one's performance in playing with a certain band might increase chances of playing with other groups or collaborating with other musicians for extended projects or one-time shows. a singer in one band probably would have the liberty to do other projects, with respect to leftover time and energy, but it wouldn't necessarily be a one-to-one relationship. also, i could see a scenario where the singer might take a hiatus from a band, but joining back together wouldn't be such a big deal. however, in relationships, "going back to him or her" signifies a huge shift in terms of forgiveness, vulnerability, change of judgment, etc. leaving a dating relationship indicates a lack of net positive benefits to continuing, and brands both parties with one more 'ex' notch.

as far as competition goes, wanted artists pretty much have the luxury of choice. in the case of bands needing lead singers, the singers probably can be more choosy, picking the band that could best reflect their talents and jibe with their style of expression. bands themselves might be competing for a common singer, although the competition would be more in tailoring themself to attract the singer rather than insulting the other parties (similar to scenario of several companies recruiting a common applicant). and i would argue that online dating works similarly; there isn't much in facilitating put-downs of rivals as there is over-accentuating one's own assets. if reputation systems were implemented in ways similar to ebay or social networking sites, perhaps negative ratings or put-downs would be incorporated into the system, but for now, since lowering the competition isn't an easy option, upping the self seems like the only direction for attraction to go.

materiality

the main idea i've been thinking about is how to design ways in which people could control their physical presentation through clothes which would better reflect the rapid rate of newly acquired knowledge.

there are lots of features of clothing that define a current fashion, such as form, decoration, style/genre, etc. the projects in the previous posting were more of the real-time-data decoration theme, but here are some other proposals that would incorporate more of the material, textile form.

the whole personal fabrication thing could faciliate more rapid renewals of the physical. a scenario might be that aspiring designers and established clothing firms alike might have patterns posted blog-style, efficiently updated, downloaded, and distributed, in which members (who may have to pay a subscription fee to get the latest update or most popular) could CAD/CAM out to a laser cutter, which would cut all the pieces in the fabric itself. then the pieces could be assembled, piece-wise, with a welder... or possibly, correct sizes of fabric adhesive could be cut out as well, and then the garment assembled step-by-step. buttons, jewelry, adornments could be 3d-printed. (it might be neat to have different heel-styles... kitten, stiletto, platform... be able to be 3d-printed and attached to modular shoe stays) although this would take a little crafty time for the wearer, it would be a lot more efficient than shopping. it would be very paper-doll-like, with much more ephemerality, but value in the novelty. the textile could be anything from tyvek to cotton, and the constructed garment mostly focusing on novelty of form.

another arena i mused upon was coloring in cosmetics. going back to the self-lab-idea, it would be interesting if 'this season's colors' could be immediately disseminated, directly into the hands of the wearers. i can imagine setups where there would be base colors and base materials, and then the fashionable color would be spread, pantone-esque, by a formula of how to mix the colors (such as like CMYK). this would be very convenient for simple mixes such as nail polish, but could also work for face/body topicals if the process were easy to use and reliably accurate. you could viably 'mix and print' your makeup color palette for the day. manufacturers could plug for their purity + quality of ingredients and accessories... such that paper and ink companies do now.

inspired by fashionvictims.org (bags that 'bleed' when exposed to excessive cellphone radiation), another idea is clothing that's cheap + plain when bought (like a blank canvas), but which has the capacity to transform dynamically depending on the temporal state. i'm looking into the ink-bleeding technicalities, but a possibility is a plain shirt, for example, that is thinly quilted with ink reservoirs in each sewn pocket. when downloaded the latest trend, select pockets would burst, forming a pattern or decoration onto the shirt. i imagine it like color-bleeding fabric pixels. so one would have stock of these plain, moderate-resolution items that would self-decorate in the latest updated fashionable motif.

i'm also investigating printing ink-jet directly on fabric... this way, one could really have an updated decorated textile design immediately...

another aspect of fashionable clothing is that it's in-style depending on the surrounding context. items that would adapt their style dynamically within changing environments would be cool. my thought example is the omnistyle bag, in which there would be striped sections encompassing the exterior. the fabric would be on little motorized rollers at the end, and so there'd be an outside (visible) and inside (invisible) component of each textile strip. you could have casual vs formal strip atop the streetwear vs classic strip, all tucked into one elemental bag. the resolution would be relatively low (2^[number of stripes]), but the choice of patterns would be great, and the parts would integrate modularly. [i guess this is kind of like reversible accessories, exponentiated.] shown at left is the endless bag from moma.

and somehow i felt that the element of surprise from signal-giver to signal-receiver was partly related to all of this (so one wouldnt wear everything on their sleeve altogether at once for public view)... although it's a little removed from the fashion front. for example, invisible-ink-printed clothes that has the latest electronic music blog items, but outsiders (who cant view it normally) wouldnt necessarily consider one was in style unless in the environment such as a club (w/ UV light, revealing the messages). same thing with a special skirt-- it would have a hidden fashionably designed slip underneath, that becomes visible when a member of the wearer's most intimate circle of friends are in vicinity and a lightbulb radiates within the skirt, illuminating and revealing the hidden layers within, scrim-like.

[any of these things would work for home design as well, i think... rapidly fabricating one's one sofa upholstery, wallpaper, or lampshades in form or decoration would be really spectacular...]

musings on sartorial fashion

how could one bring the rate of renewal of clothing fashion up to speed with the turnaround time of more rapidly updating sources of information, such as ones found online?

since wardrobe updates are relatively sleepy compared to constantly changing realtime info, i wanted to design some outfits that would attempt to bridge the temporal gap.

some of the garment fabrication setups i was musing:

i was intrigued by veblen's writings regarding the corset. i liked the idea of transforming one's physical body into something 'shapely' through an object very tangible, a fabricated body-modification tool. what if one wore an undergarment such as a corset, which had a moderate resolution of mechanisms that would tighten (strings / elastics), or augment (inflated pieces) one's body at will. as far as input goes, you could look up the real-time body shape of the hottest supermodel / actress / most downloaded person / most downloaded cartoon / fashion figure on the net, and the corset would adjust. another idea was to have a camera embedded, so you can start to resemble the crowd you're in or look like whatever you think is cool in your environment; i.e. if you're in the forest, the corset will make you look very tree-like. the wearer has control of whatever fashionable shape they want to be, humanoid (hourglass, straight, pear-shaped) or not (blob, squarish, asymmetrical).

[vaguely along lines of vincent leclerc's inflatables concept]

a dress / swimsuit made out of photosensitive fabric or paper. (looking up on this; seems like there's UV-sensitive paper widely available; still investigating fabric + paints). it would hang or be draped on a dressform, and real-time blog / news feeds would arrive and be displayed on a projected image that would fall upon the dress. i'm not sure if this will work or not, but i imagine that after about five minutes of exposure from the projection light, the garment will have been exposed to the 'newest' items of interest. depending on the development process (the UV paper needs to be washed in water to set the image), the exposed garment will be developed, and either preserved or destroyed as a new fresh garment starts the process anew. the swimsuit would work well (although a paper one would be interesting...) because once you wear it for swimming, the water would develop it and the garment would 'complete' itself, satifying its role as external and new.

many tickertape machines surrounding the waistline of a dress form / wearer. each one unravels paper, printed with the latest headlines/blogs/topMP3, whatever feed it's programmed to read. as it grows, it resembles a freeform pleated skirt. the paper can be cut or torn off when a number of new items comes barreling through, leaving rubbish in its wake upon the floor. another variation is to have it print a train/trailing skirt out the back which, as it accumulates information, creates a bustle (info is 'bubbling' up) once it's at an uncomfortably long length.

threadless.com is a popular tshirt store which has regular design updates. the shirt designs are submitted and voted upon by internet users, and then sold. it would be interesting to have a portable printer mounted on the back or front of a thick shirt / jacket, and print out the latest threadless design once it's public. the site has about 4 new designs per week, so the output could be randomized among them.

if these things above existed, would 'style channels' be the thing? would you dial up into the 'beverly hills trend' feed or the 'rave culture trend' feed? do you have to subscribe, or pay some sort of membership fee to do so?

i'm aware of nancy paterson's stock market dress, and perhaps some inflatable suits and space-shaping garments...

i'm wondering if it would be acceptable if i did mostly a paper outlining the design and conceptual motivation of these fast-fashion outfits for signals class, and then actually implemented one of the prototypes for prof. maes' ambient intelligence class. a project such as adaptable / dynamic clothing or accessories would be suitable for her class.

fashion + time + status

What motivates fashion? Pick three readings (Veblen plus two either of the required or optional ones) and describe how the author sees the function of fashion.

according to veblen, the motivation for fashion is three-fold: (1) as an external signal of conspicuous consumption through the display of a conspicuous waste of goods (a "requirement of expensiveness"), (2) as garments as frivolous and unpractical as possible to correlate restriction-of-body-for-manual-labor with increased amounts of leisure time + prestige, and (3) a medium in which to renew, and therefore repeatedly sink expenses into, with every update and redefinition of what is vogue. the combination of clothes incorporating constant change and making work impossible results in a facade which pronounces silently and effectively, i am of higher status; i may indulge in leisure more so than you.

i especially enjoy his detail within the scope of women's clothing. the high heels, the corsets, the skirts, all coordinate to produce a woman who becomes a decorated object, dressed to illustrate her life of being taken-well-care-of and as a harbinger of her husband's / family's percuniary status. she displays her consumption on her sleeve. in a way, it is her implicit responsibility to restrict her physical self in order to seal the 'insignia of leisure' of unnecessary expensiveness, impossibility of work, and renewal of trendy ornamentation.

within davis' article on fashion, he infuses more of a cultural meaning within the symbolic items of clothing, of external choice. clothing becomes a code for which both signaller and receiver must define and redefine as time, and thus culture and meaning, shifts. he writes that the meaning and reading of fashion incorporates ambiguity, context-dependency, high social variability, and undercoding. the ambiguous encodings stem from the fact that fashion, by definition, changes temporally; therefore, the interpretation of one given symbol may differ at different marked times. context-dependency relates to the fact that although the symbols may be the same and the signals held constant, the surrounding environment affects the reading of the symbols; the interpretation of signals varies across audiences. differentiation or contrast from 'an other' creates the social stratification; this classifies the 'this' versus the 'that' and fuels a structure that implies, 'if i choose this trend, i am choosing against that trend.' and finally, the undercoding of messages within the meaning of clothing hints to the subtle, almost imperceptible, emotional and aesthetic reflection hidden within the stylish elements.

basically, fashion feeds + teases the 'identity instabilities' of the underlying culture, and alters the code accordingly to change with the tide. the external shell provides a display in which individuals can silently communicate with others their social identity through an immediately impressed, sensed mode of clothing choices. the idea of 'being in style' and 'fitting in' points toward the human instinct to seek the similar and express our identities through a 'strong collective component,' that being fashion. the collective human experiences of which internally fester emerge as publicly visible signals.

the paper by suzuki on kogals had an interesting spin on fashion that both subverted veblen's pecuniary thesis a bit as it pushed a bit further than 'encoding culture' on oneself as described by davis. here, the trendsetters weren't fabulously rich or trying to display any sort of insignia of leisure; they were merely high-school girls with some pocket change to spare. although they had an increase of leisure time in comparison to the previous members of the generation (decrease in college cut-throat admissions == less pressure to spend time studying), and occasional members earned an income through sexual entrepreneurship, the girls spent most of their discretionary income on inexpensive items and smaller products. however, the most influential component of the kogal trend frenzy was the informational infrastructure that supported the transfer of information among the social network. internally, mobile phones, txt msgs, and pagers provided immediate communication within the kogal circle; externally, mass media such as magazines and television highlighted the newest kogal trends. hello kitty, tamagotchi, and slouched socks were signals of fashionableness, constantly reaffirmed and renewed as the network collectively assigned favorable signals. other generations, easily aware of the kogal trends through media coverage of sexual scandals, could adapt, react, or follow the trends as reflection on the kogal lifestyle. the most salient motivation of fashion in this case of kogals in japan in the 1990's involves the quick, easily-consumed electronic flow of information within the trendsetters and into general mass infiltration.

Think back to last year, before the election. Describe the Democratic primary race in terms of fashion. What constitutes the status hierarchy among candidates and supporters? What are the signals, their costs? What changes over time?

yikes; although i lived right across the street from where 'hardball with chris mathews' was taped + produced, i was (and still am) completely oblivious to the entire political scene. sad but true.

however, a general hierarchy will follow.

(shortly.)

How are fashions embodied in blogs? In addition to reading the Adar et al paper, you may want to look at sites such as blogdex, Technorati, etc.

blogdex displays 'the most contagious information currently spreading in the weblog community.' it showcases the fastest spreading ideas, constructing the 'top list' through links and trackbacks. daypop categorizes link popularity by "citations to that blog, or how many other bloggers link to that blog. And two, as the probability that a user randomly hopping from blog to blog will encounter that blog." in real-time, technorati tracks the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. popdex posts the most popular links on the internet, and incorporates the popularity of linking sites into the rankings.

blogs are the online version of newsbyte wildfire; a popular blog may post about something fascinating, and suddenly it's all over the internet as other bloggers mention it on their sites, (hopefully) trackbacking the link through the intermediary (the via). since most regular bloggers also scan other's blogs, members of the network constantly crisscross ideas and comments. hence, the latest + greatest items update within a matter of seconds, and soonafter show up on one of these blog popularity index sites that list the 'most popular links' on the internet.

the lifespan of a link or blogposting becomes incredibly ephemeral. a novel idea sprouts, and as it spreads rapidly, bloggers and web surfers alike consume the content practically the moment it's hatched. once the link shows up on something like blogdex, the high popularity index infers that the circulation of content is high. but, as the concept of fashion is defined by change from the status quo, heavy circulation leads to mass consumption, leads to saturation, leads to seeking the next best thing. the instantaneous nature of electronic publishing by the masses has led the turnover rate of fashion to real-time.

social networks

How do people display social networks in everyday life (that is, not online)? Give 2 concrete, specific examples. Why do they do this? Looking at this display as a signal, what is the quality it is inferring? What are the costs of making this signal? The benefits? Is there a cost to the receiver if it is not honest?

offline, there are tangible, reliable representations of bodies and identities; online, disembodiment complicates the matter. let's explore the physical space: two examples of real-world displays of social networks:

someone may signal his or her social networking status by surrounding themselves with a certain group of people that they find attractive and they with whom he or she would want to be publicly seen. this is basically a clique structure (throwback to highschool and beyond); let's envision the display of an indie-rock chick in cambridge. she wants to show that she's well-connected to the insiders of the local music scene. repeatedly showing up to lots of concerts (the middle east, tt the bears, paradise rock club), clubs, or parties with a core group of friends (all distinctively dressed to simultaneously fit in but attract attention) gives a public image that she is in-the-know about local music shows and has the social capital and real capital (covers are expensive!) to invest into the scene. she might become familiar with the bouncer or bartender or managers of the club, and perhaps befriend some of the bands or crew (ever the eager groupie). she has a greater chance of spotting somebody she knows at a restaurant, walking down the street, or at a random party... if so, then she can say 'ooh, didn't you love last night's set at tt's?' and then introduce everybody around, illustrating her well-connectedness. it gives her high social connectivity while also showcasing her urban / trend awareness in the city.

i would guess that this girl wants to be very much publicly in the scene because it offers security in a scene (one she deems as attractive, cool), garners higher popularity status in a large group sector (if she's familiar, or at least in close periphery, to many), and allows her to connect to people in a high social places (she could probably get an invitation to a famed group's afterparty if she knows the right people).

the quality inferred by others might be: she's very dedicated to the scene with time, money, and effort spent on clothes, music, and social arranging. however, it might not be too blatant because she dresses in seemingly thriftstore wares (though they could have been right off the rack at urban outfitters, merchandised versions of cool) or digs through secondhand music stores, so the indie look may seem more 'natural' than it is. even though dive bar / clubs aren't exactly landsdowne street, there's still an underwritten code of what's acceptable to be considered 'truly indie' or fit for the clique. if she's everywhere, people will think she's well-known and acceptable to the standard; being friends with her (chick as bridge) might make it easier for them to be friends with more exclusive people in the social circle.

costs: monetary costs include 'costume' (buying clothes, shoes, glasses, hair, makeup that fits in), admission expenses (cover, drinks, coat check), transportation, communication to friends (cellphone minutes, txtmsgs), buying music (cds, bootlegs, promos), and perhaps equipment (ipod, sound system, computer for mp3s). time costs include finding a concert, scanning the local publications on shows, spending time at a concert or party, listening to the actual music (the scene is supposedly based on music after all, though it might seem more like a popularity contest or fashion show at times), shopping for merchandise. time is a huge investment, especially when coordinating attendance at events with multiple people (where/when/how to meet? after/before events?), and manouevring the weekend scene (on constant contact on cellphone on where the sickest party is around the city). also, maybe it's not to cool to hang out at 'unacceptable' places; there's a political agenda against mass media, popular culture, and anything antithetical to the indie. imagine the horror of being caught browsing the sale department of abercrombie + fitch! or hanging out with your favorite sorority. there's a (loosely, but not too loose) defined script to follow. another cost might be that 'friends' might just be those who want a relationship with her to get tight with another one of her connections without caring too much with her directly.

benefits: clearly, this girl gets to know a lot of people, and earn the respect from others when they see she's consistently in the scene and accompanied by people that already are respected. popularity is a benefit, along with social events to attend to even meet more people. she can be one of the first to hear new music tracks or be invited to special listening parties or concerts. others want to know her to know others.

costs to receiver of dishonest signal: if this chick says she's gone camping with bright eyes or knows the staff at the middle east, she seems very tightly connected. or, if at a club, she talks to everybody like they're her close friend, she may seem more popular than she actually is. a cost to a receiver might be if the receiver is a genuine music enthusiast, but this chick is really all about the fashion and the social capital of the scene rather than the music, then the receiver might feel betrayed or feel like the 'authentic indie scene' is being infiltrated by wannabes.

second scenario: tess wants to display her social mavenness through a signal of popularity: constant use of her cellphone. she's maxed out her contacts/phonebook on her phone, incoming calls arrive constantly, or she's seen chatting away by many onlookers. between classes, after work, in cafes, while shopping, while driving, waiting for the bus, she's on her cell, either talking about casual events or setting up times to meet up with friends. it's more often than not that passersby see her on the phone, and those next to her (either strangers or companions) might be able to listen in on her end of the conversations. whenever she tries to call someone, it takes her more time than the usual breed to navigate through her hefty contact list.

quality: by being on the phone constantly, (virtually tied to at least one person at that time) tess displays her popularity, and thus her relationship status with others becomes highly valued. an observer might infer that she's a very busy girl, so anyone who gets in touch with her directly might be privileged since her time is limited. another quality might be that she's very audacious to be flaunting her private conversations into the public (i.e. the extremely annoying caller whose misdirected cellphone intimacy is diffused throughout the space) and isn't terribly considerate. a more extreme inference is that she might also be seen as gossipy, wasteful (of time + money spent on cellphone convos), or promiscuous (in that call-girl kind of way). pun unintended, of course.

costs: monetary costs include the actual phone, the technological accessories (attractive faceplate, chain, ringtone, headset, etc.), calling plan + minutes, and phone software. other costs include attention spent talking (even while multitasking, it increases cognitive load), time organizing / augmenting / managing contact list, mentally managing all the different calls, and being looked down upon from others who don't approve of her using the phone in different environments or situations. if her phone rings unexpectedly during a movie or group event, she'll cause disruption and suffer a momentary pang of embarassment or shame. another cost might be an addiction of sorts to the physical object, the phone, which connects her to her network. she's be a slave; it's impossible to ignore the ring; must answer all calls to ensure that all her friends can rely on her to talk, and therefore continue calling to prolong the chatty, popular image. tess may become dependent on others to pick up as well; will it be frustrating to find that no one's home or the voicemail kicks in? it's an addictive cycle.

benefits: talking is real-time and tangible in the auditory sense; even though the networking is remote, the human voice carries rich-enough expression. cellphones are a relatively cost-effective and convenient way to keep in touch, anytime of the day, anywhere. if you meet someone and want to contact them later, it's simple to add them to your contact list and be able to access them easily. she is also signalling that she is easily accessible (as in, she has the phone with her at all times); however, if she'll be on the line already or screening her calls, therein lies the exclusivity of her contact.

costs to receiver of dishonest signal: phone talk doesnt necessarily correspond to quality talk. people can be on the phone and waste hours on chitchat or 'what are you doing now?' sorts of things. she could very well be busy setting up dates or dealing with engaging events, but tess might be scratching the surface of many contacts at one time, not really involving herself in any one relationship deeply, but juggling herself among the crowd. the costs to the receiver perhaps may be a shoddy, inauthentic friendship, a disposable kind of convenience ("hey, joe's on the line, can i call you back later, thanks!"), or not being to access tess in real life (the point of it all, right?) because she's so busy on the phone.

Identity in the real world is faceted: different aspects of our personality are expressed in different circumstances and around different people. For some of us, these differences are relatively minor, and bringing together people from different areas of our lives is not a problem. For others of us, these different facets are incompatible, and bringing them together is undesireable. How is this addressed in the design of today's SNSs? How might future designs address this?

well, i think social networking sites that have a limited, specific scope / audience / usership are far more successful than broader ones, such as friendster or orkut. i especially think that thefacebook.com (which was hatched by a former classmate of mine in college and entrepreneured to terrifically wonderful reception) is a particularly effective networking site because your network is (mostly) limited to the college or university that you're in attendance. it uses your .edu email address as an account indicator, and limits the profiles that you can view to those in your school. after they expanded from harvard-only to thefacebook.com on hundreds of schools, you can claim inter-university friends, but there is definitely noticeably limited access to outsider schools versus your own.

as a student using this site, i found it infinitely more useful than friendster because the likelihood of stumbling upon someone i knew was far greater (than the general populace as a whole), and the shared locale and situation enabled more relevant 'foci' (like residential house, academic concentration, or specific student clubs / extracurriculars). there were a few professors and lecturers that had profiles on thefacebook (the only restriction was the email address domain, after all), but the awkwardness that would arise on more general sites ("whoa, my professor's friends are into that?") didn't occur because the profile was still 'academic' in nature. the prof's profile would be something that he or she would be comfortable sharing with other students and teachers alike since the network is restricted to academic domains. a scope such as a university is wide enough that it encompasses a large population and the vast diversity within it, but limited enough that one wouldn't feel too uncomfortable with certain types of information leaking into the wrong audience.

in sites such as friendster, anyone with an email address can join. you're trying to unite the world in this neat little networked structure, but the crossover can be messy indeed.

for thoughts on future design, i think specificity and categorization of people might be the way to avoid gross generality. thefacebook.com is clever to use the mostly-reliable signal (or is it a cue?) of an .edu email address to designate someone to an academic community. so, one way to corral a group is to authenticate all user's email addresses and create a domained network (so if you had a work email address, you could be part of the corporate circle). this would encourage people to maintain several email addresses, one for every facet of their life that they would like to reach out to others about. clearly, these addresses would have to possess some sort of value (as in, an established domain like a company or an organization or a community), instead of any freebie account like hotmail or gmail. each facet's entry email address, therefore, must be earned (such as an mit.edu account, for example).

dealing with all the different sides of oneself can be tiring to manage; people are complicated, and tread in so many different social groups. however, in real life, if someone wants to keep things totally separate (e.g. social, work, school, and family life), they work hard to do so by compartmentalizing their life; they'll have multiple identities to don as well.

compartmentalizing or breaking up the facets do have its costs, though. sometimes the crossover can be serendipitous or pleasantly surprising ("wow, i didn't know my dad's co-worker's bandmate is in my math class"). would it be possible to avoid the weird crossovers while allowing the cool-yet-not-embarrassing ones to come through? i kind of like that. maybe there needs to be a cultural shift altogether to remove the awkwardness of dipping into places unforeseen... we're all human. we all have different faces of ourselves; is there a cultural shame in sharing that? perhaps it might be beneficial for your boss to stumble across the fact that you like oldskool kung fu films. same goes if a student discovers his professor likes to bake pastries and rocks out to the flaming lips. i think this knowledge makes people more real, and not appear so uniformish in each different realm of life. we individually may not choose or prefer to know these incidental factoids about someone else, but they're still part of that person whether it's appropriate or not.

Describe or sketch part of a social network known to you (e.g. your friends, family, acquaintances in classes, etc. - feel free to use pseudonyms or describe a network from your past, such as high school, for privacy). Networking sites use unnuanced and symmetrical links - in your description, what more nuanced description of these links would you include? For instance, there are different types of relationships - parent-child, friend-friend - and different strengths, and different flows of support and information. What of these more nuanced descriptions could be used in a publicly articulated space, and which could not?

i could describe one social network: my former college orchestra, the HRO. we all had at least one shared activity / focus--i.e. rehearsing and performing music together--and we were all students (with rare exceptions), but there were people from all different undergrad classes (with an occasional grad student here and there), different academic concentrations, different instruments, and completely diverse activities other than HRO. some lived in my residential house, some were in my classes. there were some social events, but one could totally just go to the mandatory sessions and never really interact with anyone else. i made friends, but since the times spent together were in formal rehearsal, true quality social time would have to be arranged outside of the structured activity time.

some relationship descriptions i would define within this network: stand-partner! there is such a close, intimate, professional, goofy, undescribable relationship one has with a stand-partner. it's like roommate crossed with partner-in-crime with lifesaver; there's not really anything else like it. :)

i would define section-leader --> section member, and section member --> section member because the section leaders have a professional + leadership role over their little slice of the pie. the section-leaders tend to also be the unofficial section boosters and section morale leaders, too. inter-section community can always be stronger, and hanging out with your fellow instrumenters in section unify both in spirits and in sound.

another definition: those-who-welcomed-me-into-HRO --> me. or more simply, a mentor role. as a new member to a group, there are some existing members who answer your little questions and help you feel comfortable in the setting. they're the bridge between you and the group you'll eventually claim as your own.

people-i-admire. this is a mixture of social + professional + personal realm that might boost morale all around. admire is different from friend in that you may or may not know this person, but you know enough to make an initial positive judgment about them.

people-i-stare-at-during-rehearsal-but-have-never-talked-to. the orchestra is so large + compartmentalized (quite physically; the strings and the brass are on opposite sides of the stage always) that there are those across the room who aren't terribly familiar, but pique your curiosity. this is sort of an 'awareness' but not really friendship.

then you have the more popular things like classmate, housemate, shared majors, etc. basically, the meat + potatoes of the more generic sites, the 'we have ____ in common' underliner.

and *then* you have your actual friends, who you would honestly claim true friendships with. you hang out outside of HRO, you call or email, etc. whew.

i think that all of these could be viably public; it might be more fun if the people-i-stare-at one were constricted to those in your section (then there would be a collective understanding, as the second violins nod knowingly in one direction), but there's nothing private about it. anyone outside of the orchestra wouldn't quite understand the subtleties of some of the relationships within the orchestra because it's such a festering, incestuous, understatedly political enterprise. since i have limited the scope of the network to just this one focus, all members share the communal understanding.

on a side note, musicians have no shame.

Feld proposes that people have particular interests, common friends and pursuits, etc. that function as "foci" - and that connections are made when people with common foci are brought together. Some foci are highly constraining (such as being in the same family or research group) while others are lightly constraining (sharing a neighborhood or a popular taste) . Re-examine the social network you described. Can you apply this model to explain some of the groupings?

well, the underlying focus of it all is 'currently a member of and performing in harvard-radcliffe orchestra'. so that's the foundation on which everything can be laid. this focus itself defines the network.

stand-partner: the focus is at once physical, emotional, professional, and personal. you sit next to each other for at least five hours every week, for semesters at a time. you rejoice at the beauty and growl at the impossible in the score together. the little things like turning pages for the other, or being the one responsible for bringing the pencil or scribbling in notes creates a closeness that intimate (you must coordinate), yet parallel (the active focus is on the music). so i would envision the focus to be "making the same music in each other's physical immediacy"! music creation itself is incredibly emotional, and here you share it with your nextdoor neighbor, even if you may share nothing else (including friendship).

section-leader + fellow section members: the focus is "together we're one voice" and solidarity that arises from pride of one's own instrument. simultaneously well-defined musically as well as spatially (since a section's members all sit together), this focus becomes quite constrained by the physical and emotional binds.

mentors: a more ambiguous title, but definitely called for. the focus develops into "ways to ease in (or out?) of the HRO." the focus is bridging the gap. much less constrained; i doubt that the mentors would have a mini-network among themselves. it's more an individual mentors --> mentees setup that would crisscross randomly. however, maybe the newbies would have their own network, but one that they would eventually outgrow as they found themselves comfortable within the group.

people-i-admire: the foci here are more flexible or defined-on-spot: admiration in terms of musicality, fashion sense, overall friendliness, volunteer generosity, etc. basically, first impressions or received signals would find their place here. definitely a more personal social network statement.

people-i-stare-at: the focus exists with respect to one's own piqued curiosity. highly subjective, highly personal, but might be the perfect label for those people in our vicinity that we're even uncomfortable calling acquaintances.

people-i-share-something-with. highly unpersonal but easily definable foci: activities, dorm, major, classes, etc. these are constrained and most of their value is held in "convenience." unpersonal common things are an easy way to springboard to richer relationships.

people-i-share-something-personal-with: personally defined + meaningful foci. favorite foods, bands, movies can crop up; also, shared social circles enmeshed with other individuals (who may or may not be in the orchestra). these foci can be (but not required to be) varied, diverse, and be independent from the orchestra itself.

What are the benefits of making it more costly to add links in a social networking site?

one thing that's terribly annoying about the i-need-to-amass-as-many-friends-as-possible game is that you get friend requests from people you hardly glanced at in chem class, but now they conveniently remember you when stocking their "friend" inventory. you feel as though a human relationship, a friendship, is now a valued commodity, something that matters more in quantity than in quality. if adding links were costly, then the flippant, freebie friend requests would only be offered for those who really mattered (as they were worth the cost).

one benefit is relieving the social awkwardness of being asked to consent a friendship by someone you really don't think deserves the title. you don't want to condone its incorrectness, but rejecting the request feels like rejecting the actual person. it's nothing personal, but sometimes people just aren't exactly friends in any shape or form... the thought of rejecting someone's gracious and generous invitation seems so heartless, so you reluctantly condone the relationship. if the majority of the requests were from real friends, this internal struggle wouldn't occur as often.

another benefit is that a person's visible tally of friends would be more accurate than they are counted in the current SNS systems. each friend listed on someone's profile would more reliably indicate that a relationship actually exists, instead of some weird tie that is defined online but is ambiguous or even nonexistent offline. right now, if someone has a high number of friends, you can't easily tell if it's because the person really *does* have a large socially active network, or if they just spent a lot of time inviting every person they ever knew, ever?

if adding links were costly, then social networks would be more optimal, pruned, strategically maintained. if each user had a tight, accurate social network without a lot of 'friend fluff', then the bridging mechanism would improve in its usability, convenience, and managability. right now, if you go to friendster, it'll say something incredulous like "you have 593,285 people in your nth degree network." in an ideal setting, that number would be much lower (i dont have time to analyze 593,285 profiles!), and i would be assured that each individual on my 1st, 2nd, 3rd degrees would be an actual person reflective of their network status. as in, the connections between the 1st<-->2nd<-->3rd degrees of contacts would be qualified and reliable. i would have a better social credibility in contacting the higher-degreed individuals in my expanded network.