Building Mood, Building Community: Usage Patterns of an Interactive Art Installation

To examine the processes by which appropriation happens around an interactive art installation in an organizational context, this paper presents a qualitative, longitudinal study of an interactive art installation called mood.cloud. While designed to collect and to visually display building occupants' collective emotion, the installation was not necessarily used or interpreted in this way. Instead, building occupants saw the sensory experience of mood.cloud and the ability to change the display as a way to influence their own feelings, the feelings of others, and the overall workplace ambience. We found that interaction with mood.cloud fostered reflection about the relationship between the individual and the larger collective that the person is a part of. This relationship, between appropriation for individual benefit and appropriation for the benefit of others, afforded participants the opportunity to become more aware of their own contribution as part of a larger community. These findings suggest an opportunity to design systems around the interplay between appropriation for the individual and appropriation for the community.