So I definitely fell off of the “one blog post a week” however, I hope to pick up where I left off with this blog post about my intended projects for the future.
I have been inspired by fellow artist Sean Hadeler, who has recently just published his first book entitled “Swipe Left.” The book chronicles the individuals on the popular dating app Tinder that Sean “swiped left” on. This book serves as a documentation of the individuals that he encountered during his month on Tinder.
I intend to do something similar with Grindr, a popular gay dating and hook up app. I have used Grindr before in my series “Dancing On My Own” (which will be added to the site shortly). I intend to record a combination of the profiles of individuals near me as well as the conversations that they initiate with me, speficially the initial message that they send me.
Another project that I intend to do is similar to the one that I did this past year entitled “Project: Homophobia.” Through this project I intended to reveal the harm of anonymous social media, and the obvious lack of support that the LGBT community receives through these micro-agressive expressions of hate. To do this I had used Yik Yak to record the candid and anonymous comments of people around me. I intend to take this as a starting point and point out instances of racism and sexism to create a new series that I hope to publish myself entitled “Micro-Agressive Media: Anonymous Hate.” Through this I hope to highlight some of the problems that we as a society still need to confront in terms of respect and equality.
I have another project in store as well, but that one is a surprise for later.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to email me at dschapman@smu.edu!
Dillon Chapman
