Brief
Create an exhibition installation to entertain and encourage awareness of the new facilities.
Strategy
A real-life plant is watered depending on the amount of interaction it receives on its own Facebook page.
Skills
FBML+HTML/CSS, Facebook API, Adobe Flex (AS3), PHP 5, PHP GD, PCB Programming, Electronic & Circuit Design, Wireframe Design, Interaction Design, Public Relations
Solution
The Meet Eater is a physical computing project that unites social network users with a real garden of herbs. The installation plays on the aged theory that plants respond to "talk, attention, and affection".
The garden is fed through the social interaction it received on Facebook; for each fan and each wall post, the garden is provided with a quarter ounce of water. The Facebook page needed a balance of interaction in order to sustain itself; under-engagement caused the plant to wither, over-interaction resulted in the garden being drowned. The physical garden provided auditory feedback to its social interaction by crooning and purring when its plants are stroked. Occasionally the Meet Eater will whimper to gain people's attention in the exhibition space.
