Digital impressions: Diesel store installation responds to Twitter traffic

Rome – Diesel has enlisted the help of German artist Andreas Fischer to create a ‘living’ artwork in its flagship store that responds to Twitter posts.

The installation, set in an enclosed atrium that serves as a gateway to the store, displays an abstract digital organism, designed by Andreas Nicolas Fischer and controlled by an algorithm that is sensitive to posts on social media. The work is a collaboration between the brand, the artist and POSTmatter, the digital editorial publication of media agency Meri Media.

When Twitter users tweet using the hashtag #POSTroma, the aggregate data is pooled and sourced, affecting the flux and evolution of the work through shape and colour modifications. Users who interact are sent a unique haiku poem along with a screenshot of how the mutable artwork looks at the exact moment of their tweet.

‘A lot of my work is about looking at the question of where authorship ends and the artwork begins,’ Fischer told POSTmatter. ‘You get feedback from what you’ve done on your computer or phone, but you also see the direct result if you’re in-store. It’s a multi-layered approach.’

The installation captures the symbiosis of man with machine in a digital society. According to Fischer, the design is influenced by Cybernetics, a midcentury movement to create a metadiscipline that would encompass all sciences.

For more on how companies are creating user-generated content platforms to enhance their brand, read our Future Media Landscapes macrotrend.