Freudster is a programmatic exploration in textual analysis. This application browses MySpace user profiles, and progressively pairs them with paragraphs from a the Sigmund Freud essay "Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex." The program measures the "Flesch Index" (reading level) of the MySpace user's "About Me" description and then rewrites Freud's prose to match that user's level. As if they were collectively reading Freud's essay, these reworked paragraphs then animate word by word to form low resolution images of each MySpace user.

MySpace has changed how millions of people use and view the internet in an extremely short span of time. It has opened up new ways for individuals to present their identities and customize their corporately sponsored plots of cyberspace. There’s a lot of people playing a lot of different roles on MySpace these days, and I just can’t help but wonder what good ol’ Sigmund might have to say about it in relation to repressed desires and the unconscious. I also think it’s interesting that Freud as a figure is so commonly misunderstood across our culture (all that most people think of, it seems, are Freudian slips and the Oedipal Complex), so it makes me wonder how ideas and personalities might become diluted across MySpace as well. I’m not advocating that the service is a complete travesty, many people put it to good use, but I think that we can all agree that it’s perfectly alright to poke fun of it.

This piece is more of an animated display than an interactive work, so the ideal scene is for a gallery visitor to take some time reading text on the display evolve and realizing that the program is moving through MySpace from one user to another's profile.

A multi-threaded Java Application spiders through MySpace profiles parsing the profile pages for About Me descriptions. When an About Me text of sufficient length is found, the application uses Flesch's algorithm to gauge the reading level of that user's writing. Simultaneously, the program loads in a section of Freud's essay and gauges its Flesch Index. Through synonym replacement of multisyllable words, the reading level of the Freud paragraph is then adjusted to match the user "reading" that portion of the psychoanalyst's essay. Finally, the application imports the MySpace user's image and converts its pixels into characters from the text. For the show, I would like this display to be featured either on one of the plasma displays or via a projector.

This project led me to a lot of programming discoveries, including multithreading, building Java graphics, analysing image pixels dynamically, and designing algorithms for parsing text. It also pushed me towards reading theory and pop culture stories about social networking sites like MySpace.