<p>Or, at least, a generalised, social-media-centric version of the answer. So let me take you on an emotional journey.</p>

<h2>Disgust</h2>

<p>As the alarm bells rang by my bedside my mind was filled with loathing. This is not a sound one should hear on a weekend before 8am. But I clambered out and prepared myself for my first hack day outside of work. 50 artists and tech lovers were due to gather in North Greenwich for a weekend of collaboration and creation, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be late.</p>

<p>The crowds mingled over coffee before being ushered in to the workspace in Ravensbourne College. A brief welcome was followed by a set of talks on art and technology (such as <a href="http://humanharp.org/">Human Harp</a> - below). Having been fed on a morning of creative ideas we got ready to being hacking.</p>

<img src="https://41.media.tumblr.com/b7c8a8f4a7ceb895f8755dfc30643277/tumblr_inline_nph3omtJUk1qetc8f_540.jpg" alt="Human Harp">

<p>Those with ideas to pitch lined up in front of the audience. After presenting, the crowd was left to gather in to teams for the weekend. I waited in line for my turn to spew out some muddled ideas about visualising the emotional state of twitter, and tracking its effect on a viewers. It wasn't my finest presentation, but tied in neatly with another designer's dream of creating an illuminated globe displaying human emotion. We banded together, along side a team of hardware fans and fashion designers. We were good to go.</p>

<img src="https://40.media.tumblr.com/bcf156555c7407b82d41e5f2b145a3ce/tumblr_inline_nph3vyA2Ic1qetc8f_540.jpg" alt="">

<p>A quick brainstorm and some sketching helped us pin down our concept. Psychological research has classified six <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-26019586">(or 4)</a> universally recognised emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, fear and anger. However the team felt we should represent five of them. That's democracy for you, so out went disgust. Our idea was to get emotional data from twitter through their search widgets, and run this through a Raspberry Pi to power a strip of LED lights. The lights would be fashioned on to a perspex sphere to form the globe.</p>

<h2>Anger</h2>

<p>Parkinson's law states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". So naturally, with 2 days to build this, my first few hours were not productive at all.</p>

<p>As I struggled to work out the javascript required to access the data from the twitter, I could feel infuriation creeping through my mind. Meanwhile, the hardware team were having issues of their own, in getting consistent results with our lights.</p>

<h2>Surprise</h2>

<p>However, with perseverance comes rewards, and it was with some astonishment that by the end of day one we had the bare bones of our project coming alive. We had the beginnings of a model for our globe, and a website showing live analysis of tweets from around the Twittersphere.</p>

<img src="https://36.media.tumblr.com/25f3127a67ba0473e36b68b2712ae99f/tumblr_inline_nph3tl5uRk1qetc8f_540.jpg" alt="">

<h2>Fear</h2>

<p>As day two commenced, with the hardware issues looming over us from day one, doubt crept in over our ability to build our dream piece on schedule. Coupled with a limited supply of perspex, it was time to start looking for alternative solutions. We sketched out some designs utilising the refractive properties of what little acrylic we did have. By laying sheets vertically on a computer screen, the two dimensional web page could be brought to life as physical sculpture. The colours would then mutated and refract through the shards of material.</p>

<p>The acrylic was laser cut in to segments that came together as a ripple-like sculptural piece. Each slice sat within a careful engineered slot carved out of a sheet of plywood. This had the effect of blocking out any light not passing through the plastic.</p>

<h2>Happiness</h2>

<p>As the room cleared for the exhibition and the final gong was called, we frantically pieced together our creation. In the last moments we haphazardly threw in sound effects that transitioned with the visuals. It was with sense of relief that we set down our tools and sat back to admire our installation. Emoti was born - An intimate, person to people piece, allowing a single viewer to immerse themselves in the emotional landscape of Twitter.</p>

<img src="https://40.media.tumblr.com/48da1f7886f68ac1d71bd148fd7aa902/tumblr_inline_nph3uhRZji1qetc8f_540.jpg" alt="">

<img src="https://36.media.tumblr.com/66956301b96c2ea6caae7a2195139778/tumblr_inline_npsfyeZjXc1qetc8f_540.jpg" alt="">

<p>But all good things must come to an end. With regret we dismantled our pieces, said our thank yous and goodbyes, and departed. The installations may be gone, but thankfully the internet is still going strong and you can check out the <a href="http://www.iblack.co.uk/emoti/">Emoti visualisation here</a>, (or view the source code on <a href="https://github.com/itomblack/emotion-twitter">Github</a>.)</p>

<img src="https://41.media.tumblr.com/f47e1424a7ccf2a187c46b6acf999ad6/tumblr_inline_npsfzpX1q81qetc8f_540.jpg" alt="">