{"id":3968,"date":"2012-09-14T09:34:46","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T14:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/?p=3968"},"modified":"2023-05-10T16:06:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T21:06:36","slug":"birds-of-a-feather-tweet-to-aliens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/birds-of-a-feather-tweet-to-aliens\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds of a feather tweet to aliens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Conceptual artists Scott Kildall (left) and Nathaniel Stern, UWM associate professor of art and design, are originators of \u201cTweets In Space.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIf you had the chance, what wisdom would you impart to extraterrestrial life living 22 light-years from Earth? Your chance comes on Friday, Sept. 21, between 9:30 and 10 p.m. Milwaukee time.<\/p>\n
\n

That\u2019s when a project partially conceived at UWM with support from the National Geographic Channel ignites the Twittersphere with greetings from Earthlings.<\/p>\n

Using radio-wave transmission, messages tweeted during the 30-minute \u201cperformance\u201d with the hashtag #tweetsinspace will be beamed into deep space. For artists Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildall, the digital dialogue blitz, called \u201cTweets In Space,\u201d is part performance art, part global democracy and part communication research.<\/p>\n

Though the event assumes there will be recipients for the multitude of messages, the idea isn\u2019t as outlandish as it sounds, says Stern, UWM associate professor of art and design.<\/p>\n

Transmission will be in the direction of GJ667Cc, a planet lying outside our galaxy that is most likely to have features necessary to support intelligent life, including access to water. It\u2019s also the closest of the 777 known exoplanets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at this as one performance with two stages using the same Twitter data,\u201d says Kildall, a San Francisco-based artist.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The artwork for the project t-shirt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Viewers and contributors will be able to see and respond to each other\u2019s messages in real time, while Kildall and Stern will be Twitter-streaming live at the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in New Mexico. Feedback from the event will inevitably show up on outlets like Facebook and Instagram, leading to what Stern calls a \u201csocial media explosion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linking with National Geo<\/strong><\/p>\n

If this sounds familiar, it\u2019s because the National Geographic Channel hosted a global tweet-in of its own in June to promote a new program called \u201cChasing UFOs.\u201d The channel\u2019s producers also had tagged tweets transmitted into space.<\/p>\n

But instead of derailing Stern and Kildall\u2019s project, the National Geographic Channel became a partner, licensing and using the software developed by UWM alumnus Christopher Butzen (\u201911 B.F.A.) that allows the huge volume of tagged messages to be collected and archived from Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational Geographic had the same idea we did, but we just got to the Internet first,\u201d says Stern. \u201cWe had entirely different purposes and audiences. But they were great to partner with. They wanted to know how they could support us. We were planning on making our software open-source, but when they offered to license it, we were able to use that money toward our fundraising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stern and Kildall also brought UWM engineering students into the project. Stern had originally asked a group of students enrolled in a product development course to design a method of transmission. The group, which included Nate Bruk, Alex Hughes, Justin Linnemeier, Matt Schleis and Alex Gueldenzopf, worked on the hardware for a delivery system. But, after building a prototype, they ultimately found it would be too expensive to develop and there were too many FCC regulations attached to using it.<\/p>\n

Instead the students researched vendors and found Deep Space Communications Network, a Florida-based company that became a project partner. The students\u2019 prototype will be on display at future exhibitions of the work.<\/p>\n

Talk research<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Part of the radio-wave transmission prototype delivery system devised by engineering students for the Tweets In Space project. (Photo by Nathaniel Stern)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stern and Kildall see the event as a way to probe the implications of social media on public conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an example of what I call \u2018potentialized\u2019 art,\u201d says Stern. \u201cIt intentionally promises more than it can deliver, and asks us to explore that \u2018more-than\u2019 inside ourselves, through the discussion it engenders. It\u2019s one way to dig into the possibilities for social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also about the evolving nature of both communication and technology. When Stern and Kildall use the term \u201cdemocracy,\u201d for example, they mean it in a generic sense. It refers to the freedom of hearing many perspectives, instead of receiving one voice, one point of view, says Kildall.<\/p>\n

\u201cArtistic and scientific methodologies have often historically led to the same result,\u201d he says. \u201cThe artistic approach is just as exploratory as the scientific because you don\u2019t know what the outcomes will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tweets with the hashtag are already appearing on Twitter, but only messages sent during the event will be beamed into space.<\/p>\n

What happens after the performance? \u201cIn 44 years, we\u2019ll be listening to see if anyone replies,\u201d says Stern.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A project partially conceived at UWM ignites the Twittersphere with greetings from Earthlings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"section":[],"display_categories":[],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[344,164],"class_list":["post-3968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","uwmnews-feed-arts-architecture","uwmnews-feed-arts"],"yoast_head":"\nBirds of a feather tweet to aliens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A project partially conceived at UWM ignites the Twittersphere with greetings from Earthlings.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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