I Want You To Want Me - a project of datagathering and information design of behaviour on dating profiles

The interactive installation "I Want You To Want Me", by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition.

I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. It chronicles the world's long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, using real data collected from Internet dating sites every few hours.

I Want You To Want Me chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, gathering new data from a variety of online dating sites every few hours. The system searches these sites for certain phrases, which it then collects and stores in a database. These phrases, taken out of context, provide partial glimpses into people’s private lives. Simultaneously, the system forms an evolving zeitgeist of dating, tracking the most popular first dates, turn-ons, desires, self-descriptions and interests.