_ThreadBare is an artistic exploration of the current status of the usage of #metoo on Twitter. The piece monitors the MeToo hashtag in real time and processes user supplied location and text information to animate an item of clothing that would have been donated by a survivor of sexual violence. Background audio is taken from a TED talk given by Tarana Burke, activist and originator of the MeToo movement, and is interrupted with sampled recordings of celebrities and public figures saying the words “me too” each time a tweet is posted with #metoo. While running _ThreadBare collects Tweets in real time on the RaspberryPi via the Tweepy Twitter API utilities for Python. The Twitter user’s self defined location (on their public profile) is used to acquire latitude and longitude coordinates. This location information is quite whimsical at times since it is completely user defined and users are free to be conceptual in their responses. (eg. “God’s green earth”, “mars”, “Climbing my own Everest”). The latitude and longitude values determine which strands of LEDs are illuminated and the length of the text of the tweet is used to determine the brightness. The goal of this piece is to convey some of the wonder at the ongoing, regular and non-stop use of this tag and to inspire conversation and thought around it’s continued relevance and significance.”
Raechel E. Kula