I have no taste in art–if you tell me a piece is good, I’ll have to take your word for it. But I know how good Like This is because it tells me exactly how many other people like it too.
Built by German artist Mario Klingemann and on display at the Ultra Social exhibition at the Urban Arts and Media organisation (UAMO) Festival 2011 in Munich from October 27-30, 2011, Like This employs an Arduino board to count likes and store the total number of presses. As Klingemann explains,
It is not connected to Facebook since for obvious reasons it is not possible to register a “like” for another person without being logged in. Only the button design has been borrowed since it is such a cultural icon already and most people will immediately understand how to use it…The idea was to create a self-referential artwork that shows how many people like it.
I could see a similar system being built into the Guggenheim where visitors would slowly ascend a spiral of ever-increasing Likes, +1’s, and Retweets.
[Flickr via Laughing Squid]