One of our favorite artsy girl crushes, Miranda July, just released a new (and free!) art-app called "Somebody" and it just may turn your next trip to LACMA into an emotional outsourcing social experiment/significantly less creepy version of Tinder.*
Here's how it works:
You download the app (duh), open the app (duh x2), sign up and post a photo (obviously, so whoever you get in touch with can recognize you IRL). Then, you list five things you love (example from a real Time Out Los Angeles editor: "Pesto, my cat Nutmeg, airport terminals, root beer and Istanbul."). Then, you pick a friend among your contacts to send a message to, and your friend has to confirm whether it's a good time to receive said message. If it's a good time, you provide the message (with or without movements or actions!) to your "stand-in," whom you'll choose in the app based on their five things they love, their photo, and user reviews. Whoa.
Then, your stand-in and your friend are given a location to meet up, where your stand-in will give an amazing performance. Maybe it's a high-five, hug (creepy?), or a well articulated point about the Van Gogh to Kandinsky exhibition. If your stand-in can't find your person, they can message your person directly to make it easier to meet up and deliver said message.
Then, it helps to be in a place where there are a lot of other Somebody users around. To launch the app, LACMA has been designated as an official Somebody "hot spot." Other museums are participating too, like the New Museum in New York, Yerba Buena in San Francisco and Museo Jumex in Mexico City.
As for July, "I see this as far-reaching public art project, inciting performance and conversation about the value of inefficiency and risk," she says. July will be speaking at LACMA Sept. 11, but tickets to the free event are already gone. You might be able to send a stand-in to LACMA to ask (or beg) for an overflow room, though.
Check out this video. It explains it all.
*We totally can't guarantee this, actually.