RICHARD WILLIAMS
Firestarter (2014)
Firestarter is an ongoing interactive work which makes use of the smartphone dating app Tinder. Tinder users are presented with the profile pictures of other users within their geographic vicinity, (determined by GPS) and can either swipe the image right to "like" that user, or left to "pass" on them. Users who have mutually liked one another can send messages, frequently used to arrange the times and locations of in-person meetings. Firestarter is the creation of a network within that network. By adding a small logo to the bottom righthand corner of their profile images, Firestarter users can identify one another without any previous contact, and expand their network by liking one another. The creation of such a shadow-network, within an unmonitored and seemingly innocuous system, allows for possible reappropriation by everyone from activists to terror cells. This draws into question the preconceived limits and uses of such technologies.
Within the gallery, viewers are presented with a QR code, which brings them to a download link for the logo (pre-sized to fit the Tinder interface) as well as a set of very simple instructions for becoming a part of the Firestarter network. The more the work is shown, the larger and more widespread the network becomes. The greatest strength of the system is that its users need not have had an contact previously, nor even be aware of one another's existence.
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