Facebook Fan

Overview

The concept of the Facebook Fan plays on the puns of "fan" and "cool", and lets you experience the "coolness" based on the follower counts on any given Facebook page. It's devised with the Facebook Graph API, an Arduino, a rotor, a power supply, and a box fan, held together by laser-cut custom-designed plexiglass casing. By entering the name or ID of a Facebook Page, you can enjoy the cooling sensation "powered" by its popularity. The device instantly turns the follower statistics into a multi-sensory experience, which allows not only the visualization but a tangible effect of the social media follower counts — translating the impression of "cool" to a tangible feeling of cool.

Inspirations

“Useless” and “machine” are a pair of inherently contrary concepts. Influential artist, designer and innovator Bruno Munari first married these two words together by calling his inventions the “useless machine”. Although they were functionally “useless”, they were not without a purpose. His work was intended to “re-establish the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing.”

As designers, we are trained in design thinking, programmed to design for usability, functionality and efficiency. Centering around consumer needs and catering to the market interest have become our natural instincts. The Facebook Fan is taking a step back from the notion of consumer design — its functionality is excessive and useless, however it provides some food for thoughts on the underlying social values and judgement systems in this social media era.

• Rapid Prototyping
• API
• Installation Art
• Interaction Design