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Filmmaker and author Miranda July has entered the world of apps...with a twist. Somebody, her new iPhone application, aims to bring spontaneous face-to-face interaction back to text messaging. Users can send messages to their friends (who must also have the app), but their note—along with a photo of its intended recipient—is instead sent to the user located nearest to that friend (the app uses GPS location data). The stranger is then directed to deliver the message verbally to the person it was meant for. Since the app works best if a critical mass of users are located near one another, hotspots have been created in six cities in the U.S. and Mexico. New Yorkers interested in trying Somebody can head to the New Museum through October. Users can also create new hotspots and register them on the app’s website, where they'll find a short film July created based on the app, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
July is scheduled to speak about the app at The New Museum on October 9, but we found her concept so interesting, we decided to catch up with her now.
Where did the inspiration for this app come from?
I had been writing a novel for the last few years, and had just finished it. So I was coming out of a really isolated time and thinking of a whole bunch of different projects that were kind of the opposite of writing a novel—including a few different ideas for apps, and this was the one I was most excited about. I, like everyone else, am addicted to my phone, yet I can’t say it exactly brings me joy. It’s like a perpetual waiting and checking that has taken over my life. So I was thinking about what does bring me joy: this unpredictable, fleeting interaction with strangers that happens less and less now that there’s the Amazon-ification of life. We don’t really need to interact that much anymore, or it’s becoming that way. So it seemed like there [could be] a really simple thing that put you in contact with strangers, that was not goal oriented—not sex or dating, that’s been mined already. But no one would think to mine this because it’s that ecstatic feeling where you don’t know how [an interaction] is going to turn out or how it’s going to come out at all. A friend had been talking about singing valentines in high school, and it clicked in my head. That’s so fun—you always want to be the one getting the singing valentine, and it’s fun to be the one delivering it. You want to be the go between with two friends. I was completely obsessed.
What do you hope people will take away from using the app?
I hope not that they’ll just keep sending Somebody messages forever—it’s not an Internet start-up where that needs to happen. But I would like for it to jiggle that part of their brains that craves that sort of engagement with the world, and then lead to other things like breaking out of the waiting/checking cycle.
What kind of feedback have you gotten on the app so far?
It’s been a little hard for me, who is used to putting totally finished things out into the world, that it doesn’t work perfectly. We’re desperately waiting for Apple to push Version 1.1 into the store. But while people have noted that it’s a little buggy, the good will for it seems strong. It’s nice that it’s not all artists. It seems like it’s tapping into a more human thing.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah—I have a friend who has a TV show so [they told me] they’re using it on the set, just playing with it. Someone else is doing a comedy thing around it this Friday. It does have so much narrative potential, which I mined in my movie. I’m waiting for the new version to go up because I have a lot of fun movies of deliveries and stuff—I want to point people towards the possibilities.
Like video examples of ways to deliver messages?
Yeah…I’m a total control freak and this is probably the least controlled thing I’ve ever made, so it’s fun, but it’s also me trying to point people towards their best screenwriting skills. This is a new way to learn to write—it’s essentially writing in script format. So I definitely want to create some examples of that.
What do you see as the timeline for the app, or next steps for it?
I’m curious to see if it fulfills a need that is ongoing, or if it’s just an event. To me it’s successful either way. It’s interesting—How much does the technology that’s offered shape what people need? Will it create a new need and therefore have longevity? Or is that need not really substantial enough, and it’s more like something that starts a conversation that leads to other things? I wasn’t going into this like, ‘then I’ll sell this for a kabillion dollars’. I’m also enjoying thinking of crazy ways to end it that no one else thinks are good ideas.
Do you have any hope that this will impact the way people think about technology and communication on a bigger scale?
To be honest I don’t think it’s so much about communication. We have so many better ways to communicate. It’s more like creating an experience for someone. I think the best part personally are the floating messages—you could, on some occasion, send yourself on a mission to deliver one, which I did a few nights ago. You could endlessly mock [Somebody] for what an inefficient way it is to communicate, but the thing that it gives you is more of a feeling and an experience. It’s not that easy to get people who don’t know each other together in time and space to have something in real life. So if you want that, and you want the unknown of that, you have to put in a little effort and open yourself up a little. That puts you in a different place than you are when you’re just trying to communicate a message.