Considering all the chatter about interoperability and social presence this week, it is worth drawing attention to project I recently discovered. Brooklyn-based new media artist and curator Marcin Ramocki recently launched a web-based piece called Blogger Skins. The project uses Google's image search to create photo-mosaics representing the web presence of a number of prominent art bloggers including Tom Moody, Paddy Johnson, James Wagner, Joy Garnett and Régine Debatty (whose "skin" is on the left). On the surface, the project is a bit of a one-liner, but I think it is a fun exercise in speculating the nature of presence, personality and influence across a distributed network of sites and communities. The project statement elaborates on the contemporary notion of identity:

We have entered the era of identity superstructures: complex sets of search engine outcomes based on our activities, popularity, name itself, purposeful efforts and a whole bunch of random data fluctuation. We are growing second skins, made out of words, links and images: exciting, addictive and sometimes completely meaningless.

I really enjoy the idea of an image based mapping of social presence, it is a nice change from the ubiquitous network map or dry, quantitative metrics like Technorati's authority.

The fact that these images are identified as skins is also worth discussing. This terminology evokes the notion of texture mapping from gaming and in turn, the politics of the avatar. I'm sure we will see more an more work reconsidering notions of identity as we all begin to shift from web presence (online footprint) to lifestreaming (online inhabitation). [via Régine Debatty]