Experiments in art : digital : life

A great site I learned about through Facebook. This post in particular caught our eye – especially now that we’ve officially launched the UPP. Always a fan of Chris Burden.

What does it mean to be someone’s friend?

The dictionary on my dashboard says it’s “a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.”

My facebook says that I have 337 friends. Some of them are family. I have had sex with at least 2 of them, and there are probably close to 100 that I have nothing that even imitates a “bond of mutual affection.” In fact, many of them I have never met. They are friends of friends, organizations that have facebook pages, “friend collectors.”

So what does it mean, in this digital age, to be someone’s friend?
I feel like there are all kinds of connotations that go with the word: someone you can turn to when you need something, someone that will help you, listen to you, go see a movie, have coffee…in other words, someone that you would feel comfortable spending time with in the flesh. Someone that’s more than just an acquaintance. Someone who would be there for you.