Like an Urban Mood Ring, the MMM PROJECT creates an artwork comprised of the collective, changing moods of people moving along Market street visible both on site and globally.

The METRO MOODS ON MARKET street project seeks to build upon the powerful capacity for "Third Places" to enable complete strangers to share a common experience and in doing so make very real human connections. MMM proposes to explore a Fourth Dimension of public interaction. If our first place is our home, in essence, our ‘self’, our workplace or school, is the second, or our necessary ‘other’. The places we chose to encounter others, are of course, those third places. But what happens when we become connected with others through an indirect, but nonetheless collaborative act?

Another concept being explored in is that of "Urban Feedback". Does the mood of the city spread, either in a good or a bad direction? The central activity of the MMM project invites visitors to tell the world how they are feeling by tossing a mood ball into a scrolling display. Like pixels, the collective contributions of the hundreds of visitors will express the diverse emotions moving through the city at any given time.

A third concept being explored is one of ephemerality and permanence amidst a digital society. As the mood balls make their way down the screen, a timelapse recording will capture the changing colors and patterns that appear over time. The position of this camera also presents visitors an ideal location to take mood shots of friends. As the majority of the photos taken will be done using smart phones, visitors will be invited to upload their images to an Instagram account created for the event. There they will be able to download the day’s timelapse clip.

On the final day of the festival, visitors will be invited to take a mood ball home with them allowing the project to live on in their home with the feelings they experienced that day as a souvenir to them to keep long after the festival is over.

Project Gallery