SoyaBall is an online fortune telling and fortune gathering site. Inspired by the popular Magic 8 Ball and Google’s auto-complete function, we seek to create a seemingly all-knowing device. Rooted in Dada and Surrealist games like the exquisite corpse and borrowing from notions of Oulipo poetry, SoyaBall juxtaposes two seemingly incongruous ideas through an extraction and recombination of data. The site takes gathered fortunes input by previous users and pairs them with questions asked by other users. SoyaBall questions the acquisition and distribution of how we find the answers to life’s questions. The site consists of two sections: one where participants ask a question and receive what the software perceives to be the best answer from the pool of available fortunes, the second section takes questions asked by previous users and asks new users to provide an answer. The two sections feed each other, as they have a cyclical relationship in generating content. Questions asked in one are answered in the other. SoyaBall is set up as a double-blind experiment in that the users are unaware that their questions and answers are feeding the disconnected databases.Users are limited to inquiry once a day to foster thoughtful questions and answers, as opposed to simply being a dumping ground for life’s less-challenging questions. SoyaBall puts technology, and specifically the internet, in the role of psychic figure as it offers the best answer based on the pool of information it has. Given the desire for most to simply jump online to find an answer, SoyaBall critiques the ways that we seek knowledge. SoyaBall lives online, but in our quest to blur the line between digital and physical space, the second phase of the project will involve constructing a portable device to take SoyaBall into public space. To spread knowledge of and access to SoyaBall, we will create and distribute QR codes that direct those with SmartPhones to a mobile version of the site. Users empower SoyaBall to give them definitive answers. SoyaBall playfully subverts our desire to find definitive answers and quench our uncertainty simply by taking any answer and labeling it as definitive.
