Social Experiment Asks: What's the Last Photo on Your Phone?

What's This?

By Laura Vitto2013-08-30 17:40:49 UTC

In our digital world, smartphones have become an extension of ourselves in that they contain personal information we may or may not want to share with others.

Interactive artist Ivan Cash explores this connection in a new series of social experiments, the latest of which asks random people to share the story behind the last photos they took on their phones. The resulting video is funny and heart-warming, as total strangers open up to Cash about their personal lives.

Cash told Mashable that the inspiration for this series came from his interest in technology's ability to connect people but also, in doing so, limit their abilities to form certain connections.

"I'm specifically interested with this series in playing with the tension between us all walking around with phones that contain very intimate parts of our lives and then being on these phones all the time, which subsequently closes us from the potential for intimacy with the living, breathing people around us," he said.

In an earlier video from the series, Cash asked people on the street to reveal their latest text message conversations. While some choose to reveal their more light-hearted texts, others read out conversations dealing with more serious subject matter. Check it out below.

"I am utterly fascinated by people and reality and human stories of life, love, loss, gain, pain, & pleasure," Cash told Mashable. "Asking people these questions was my way of hoping to get a candid, unfiltered response which is inherently interesting. In a digital world that is in some ways so curated, having this random effect feels more truthful, real, and surprising than if I were to ask people to pick their favorite photo on their phone, or share 'an interesting' story with me."

Cash's Social Experiment videos are just the latest in a group of projects that use digital technology to emphasize more personal connections in the real world. These include Selfless Portraits, a startup that allows strangers across the Internet to draw one another's Facebook profile pictures, and Snail Mail My Email which turns emails into handwritten letters.

To learn more about Cash's work, check out his website.