“Still waiting…” “Lingering grace at J. Alexander’s.” “Gay hat, green shorts.”
Through a randomized recombination of Craigslist Missed Connection posts, Emma Dickson’s Mixed Connections reevaluates digital longing, anonymity, identity, and place. Mixed Connections pulls from Craigslist posts in three cities—Pittsburg, New York, and Durham—exploring the similarities and differences of each location. The initial page scrolls infinitely, adding layers of glitching that “break down the boundaries between the user, the site, and the different locations the further you explore.” As the user scrolls, clicking on any post title reveals an individual post generated from scrambling random sentences; these recombined sentences from separate posts often produces coherent content and uncovers new narratives. As new connections are posted to Craigslist, Mixed Connections is always shifting, changing, and growing to reflect the present moment.
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Emma Dickson is intrigued by data and the ways in which it shapes our lives. She loves working with time based media, especially digital art, and executed the 2016-2017 restoration of BRANDON a 1998-1999 piece of netart by Shu Lea Cheang. Her personal projects tend to focus on the conservation/creation of net art. Dickson’s an active skater with Bull City Roller Derby and she’s employed as a Data Scientist/Developer with IBM.
