Twitter went public last week, and in response, media artist Kyle McDonald decided to open his own personal Twitter account to the masses.
McDonald, who is known for his People Staring at Computers project, wanted to explore the idea of what it means to form an online identity. He explains:
Twitter [is] one of the few services that has helped shape our understanding of what it means to craft an identity online, [so] I’ve decided to put my own identity in the hands of the public.
McDonald is taking advantage of Twitter’s relatively new feature, which gives users the option to receive direct messages from anyone (whereas previously they had to be followed by that person to message them). He coded a way for users to link their direct messages to his own feed, so that anyone who direct messages him with a tilde symbol (~) before the message, will actually tweet as him.
can i be you?
— Kyle McDonald (@kcimc) November 11, 2013
"There’s a strange connection between our 'self and our body," McDonald says. "The connection is assumed, because they’re difficult to separate. But the only thing connecting our identity to our online persona is the knowledge of a password. What happens when we break that connection and dilute our online identity?"
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Image: Office of Governor O'Malley
This article originally published at PSFK here
PSFK is a Mashable publishing partner that reports on ideas and trends in creative business, design, gadgets, and technology. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.