For the next thirty days, Cristin Norine will exist only in cyberspace.
Oh, she's not a hologram. She's just cut herself off from actual human interaction.
As part of what she and Josh Elliot, a photographer, call the Public Isolation Project, she has put herself up in a storefront in Portland, Oregon where she is displayed on full-view.
That being said, she is not allowed to talk or connect with any actual human beings aside from using the Internet. She can use Twitter, Facebook, and even Skype, which allows video chatting between people, but she can't have visitors in her glass cell.
People can see all her actions on the computer via a projector, and the entire project is being documented on http://www.publicisolationproject.com. A documentary is also in the works.
The strange thing about the project is thinking about the fact that for some people, it might not be too much of a stretch to cut themselves off from human life.
Morgan Spurlock's documentary Supersize Me, chronicling his month of eating nothing but McDonald's, seemed extreme until Spurlock and others pointed out that there are people who eat nothing but fast food every day.
How many others out there in the world only experience life through the computer? It's virtually impossible to estimate how many invisible people there are in any society. In today's world, even people with jobs and friends are becoming better acquainted with total strangers than we are with our own family members.
This story may seem like a novelty--another performance art piece done by someone to get their fifteen minutes, but ask yourself:
How many of us are already living in our own glass cell?
Oh, she's not a hologram. She's just cut herself off from actual human interaction.
As part of what she and Josh Elliot, a photographer, call the Public Isolation Project, she has put herself up in a storefront in Portland, Oregon where she is displayed on full-view.
That being said, she is not allowed to talk or connect with any actual human beings aside from using the Internet. She can use Twitter, Facebook, and even Skype, which allows video chatting between people, but she can't have visitors in her glass cell.
People can see all her actions on the computer via a projector, and the entire project is being documented on http://www.publicisolationproject.com. A documentary is also in the works.
The strange thing about the project is thinking about the fact that for some people, it might not be too much of a stretch to cut themselves off from human life.
Morgan Spurlock's documentary Supersize Me, chronicling his month of eating nothing but McDonald's, seemed extreme until Spurlock and others pointed out that there are people who eat nothing but fast food every day.
How many others out there in the world only experience life through the computer? It's virtually impossible to estimate how many invisible people there are in any society. In today's world, even people with jobs and friends are becoming better acquainted with total strangers than we are with our own family members.
This story may seem like a novelty--another performance art piece done by someone to get their fifteen minutes, but ask yourself:
How many of us are already living in our own glass cell?
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