What Does Your Soul Look Like?

What Does Your Soul Look Like?
I’m trying to create a piece of interactive art. Can you help by drawing something? It should only take 5 minutes.

I’d like you to draw a picture of your soul. How you imagine it to look.

Nothing sinister intended. I’m curious about how different people perceive their ‘soul’.

If enough people do this, it could be really interesting. Because we’ll all be blind to other peoples’ drawings, there’s a chance here to spot patterns, commonalities and any interesting coincidences that might appear across all the souls.

Cooler, we may even be able to build a taxonomy of souls.

At the least, it should be a fascinating, crowd-sourced image…

(This idea was inspired by Waxy’s toyings with Mechanical Turk and The Sheep Market by Aaron Koblin.)

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS

Here’s what to do
Please draw your soul on white paper with a black or dark pen. (Although colour is okay too, if you feel you really need it.) Then scan, webcam or photo it and upload it to: InformationIsSoulful AT Gmail

(You can also draw on the computer if you really want. Though I think hand-drawn might be more soulful?)

Tips:
: Create a moment for yourself to do it.
: Be expressive
: Don’t think about it too much. Just draw whatever comes to mind. 1st drafts are good.
: It can be as simple or as complex as you like
: IMPORTANT: Please mark your picture in one corner to indicate whether you are male (M) or female (F)

Quality
If you’re webcamming or photo’ing, please use a flash or good lighting. Ideally it’ll be pretty much in focus. And filling the frame with the minimum of creases and crinkles.

Credits & Anonymity
If you’re happy for your name to appear in the credit lists of any resulting image, please write words like ‘HAPPY TO BE CREDITED’ in your email. Otherwise, I will treat your submission as anonymous. (If you want to be fully anonymous, you can use yousendit.com.)

That email address is: InformationIsSoulful AT Gmail

WIN!
As an added incentive, 5 random soul artists will receive a free copy of my book, The Visual Miscellaneum, when it comes out in November.

Thanks everybody! I can’t wait to see how this will turn out.

Posted in Crowd Sourcing, Fun, Group MInd, Self, Taxonomy.
GET THE permalink
Post a comment or leave a trackback.




33 Comments

  1. Dina
    Posted September 15, 2009 at 9:32 am | Permalink | Edit

    I don’t think we have souls, it’s OK if I draw my mind? :P

  2. Bob
    Posted September 15, 2009 at 10:05 am | Permalink | Edit

    Next: Draw the invisible food you give to your gnomes and unicorns.

  3. Posted September 15, 2009 at 10:59 am | Permalink | Edit

    it remonds me of this:
    http://www.emotionallyvague.com/results_02.php

    Should be fun.

  4. Memphis
    Posted September 15, 2009 at 12:05 pm | Permalink | Edit

    When I read this, I thought it’s a great idea. It would be really interesting to see the drawings and people’s feeling about their souls. However, I think that colored pictures should be encouraged, because most people do probably think that Soul is something etheric, nonmaterial, and using only black or dark pen(cil) might be too limiting when you want to express this.
    I do understand that colored pictures take more space or are more expensive to print and I do know that our opinions differ, so I might actually be the only one who finds it difficult to draw a soul with a dark colored pen. .-) But even if this is true, colored pictures may show more .-).

  5. Posted September 15, 2009 at 1:01 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Excellent – will give you my soul!

  6. Posted September 15, 2009 at 5:41 pm | Permalink | Edit

    This reminds me of the Great Cosby Experiment:

    Good luck!

  7. Posted September 15, 2009 at 5:42 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Apparently I didn’t do the linking correctly. Sorry ’bout that.

    The Great Cosby Experiment

  8. Posted September 16, 2009 at 9:33 am | Permalink | Edit

    I’m sure most people know, but it would be nice to have a “dot com” at the end of each gmail.

    Cheers,

    Hope this project works well. I’ve sent a picture of my “soul”

  9. Elize
    Posted September 16, 2009 at 4:13 pm | Permalink | Edit

    For the first time in my life I am going to send my soul to a complete stranger…..
    (btw: thanks for replying on facebook!)

  10. Posted September 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm | Permalink | Edit

    I suspect the ultimate beauty will be in the variety of drawings and not in the reduction of all drawings to a formal idea. Einstein spent the last years of his life trying to reduce his findings on relativity to watertight equations. In reducing relativity, he missed out on one of the greatest discoveries: black holes. Interestingly, another physicist, Robert Oppenheimer, used Einstein’s equations to prove the existence of black holes. So perhaps by working from reduced visions we are able to expand our own again? Looking forward to the results.

  11. Tim
    Posted September 17, 2009 at 4:23 am | Permalink | Edit

    ok I sent it to you. it was much harder than I thought initially.

    when someone wins this, and makes a material gain, will they have sold their soul?

    i know you think i am joking, but what is that vague nervous feeling you have right now?

  12. Posted September 18, 2009 at 5:58 pm | Permalink | Edit

    “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” C.S. Lewis
    I have no idea what I look like.

  13. Posted September 18, 2009 at 9:47 pm | Permalink | Edit

    This also reminds me of a project called “The Minimum Form an Object Needs to Exist”: http://issuu.com/iohipocket/docs/objectology

  14. david
    Posted September 21, 2009 at 2:57 pm | Permalink | Edit

    thanks all – i have harvested quite a few souls. Muhahahahaha.

    @dina – mind is good, if you don’t have a ‘soul’
    @memphis – colour is cool if you want to use it – i just wanted to equalise all the contributions colour-wise so some didn’t stick out

    Just a note on any Luciferic connotations. No sinister intentions are intended. I will not own anybody’s ‘soul’ as a result of this. Thank ye.

    David

  15. julie_k
    Posted September 23, 2009 at 3:40 pm | Permalink | Edit

    David, have you seen the movie cold souls? Check it out… and read Paul Giamatti pondering how celebs souls would look in the New Yorker.

    http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/07/20/090720ta_talk_friend

    love this idea!

  16. Bman
    Posted September 25, 2009 at 1:22 pm | Permalink | Edit

    I thought the yogis already determined the soul looks like a coiled serpent that resides above the head, with three and a half coils to the serpent body. Since you’re probably a Westerner reading this, look it up since you don’t believe me.

  17. Posted October 8, 2009 at 7:00 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Just stumbled onto this. Is it still open? Are you going to post them as they come in or just the winners? I should have something together in the next day or so….

    I like your site. Got here from the post at abduzeedo.

    Z

  18. Dasha
    Posted October 9, 2009 at 7:37 am | Permalink | Edit

    I’ sorry, my english is not so good, i haven’t really understand, how should i upload the picture of my soul.

    However, It’s a beautifull project.

    Dasha, from Ecuador

  19. david
    Posted October 9, 2009 at 8:07 am | Permalink | Edit

    thanks a lot. Please post your soul to informationissoulful [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

    I’m going to close the entries Oct 31st and contacting book winners around the same time.

  20. MartynTyrant
    Posted October 11, 2009 at 10:35 pm | Permalink | Edit

    My soul has been compressed to little under 1.5mb and posted.

    Be careful with it.

  21. Savagela
    Posted October 16, 2009 at 6:10 am | Permalink | Edit

    I was taken in by your infographic:

    I made a full color version of my soul and mailed it in

    Then I read the DETAILED instructions (ohhhhh the detailed instructions) which asked that we use a black pen on white paper and resort to color only if absolutely necessary. So I made a black & white version of my odd, veiny muted color scene and well… it didn’t match well but it was mine.

    Then I looked at the whole post again and saw the big graphic SSS OOO UUU LLL in three colors. Oh the Irony. Fooled by the MisInfographic!

  22. worthruss
    Posted October 18, 2009 at 1:40 pm | Permalink | Edit

    In Castenada’s books it’s said the soul looks like a mushroom. In one of the earliest books about the dead sea scrolls, an interpreter claimed that the scrolls indicated Christ was a mushroom. And that the Summarians worshiped the mushroom as a representation of the soul. Castenada said that souls too attached to the world, had huge stems; whereas souls that had achieved peace, and took little from the world were more easily detached and move more quickly to respond to changes. The Hindus all believe in the power of the Godhead. And Freud was a numb skull cocaine addict, out to lock everyone into a system of categories, in which there is little freedom and no enlightenment. Some believe the Bible is written in doublespeak, to throw people off from it’s real meaning, because the early Christians were being treated as little more than animal food. So paint my ‘shroom glowing bright as the sun, and let it shine, let it shine! So wake up children, those seven extra dimensions they’re trying to find with the Hadron Super Collider, may be in your soul full mind’s infinite abilities. Eu ROPE?

  23. Wade
    Posted October 22, 2009 at 5:00 am | Permalink | Edit

    Since we don’t have souls (it’s just a fable), the picture would be of nothing. Pretty boring picture.

  24. kr.,
    Posted November 4, 2009 at 6:17 am | Permalink | Edit

    just a note to say thank you..
    for what you are doing, the information you convey, presented as it is (in an easily accessible and enjoyable manner) has an ability to create a new awareness, and i hope will reach an audience of proportion. honestly, this is one of the most creative, most fun, relevant, (powerful) and necessary works i have had the pleasure of viewing for some time.. i wholeheartedly believe that what you are doing is making a positive impact in the world. congratulations (!)

    also, for the record, if i were to detail my soul i would draw an egg shape (larger side as it would sit toward the bottom) where if it were the size of say a thumbnail there would be dead center in the upper two fifths-two thirds toward the top a perfect circle, the size of a pinhead, just large enough to see the detail inside. i would use a dusted colour, surprisingly, a light blue, starting from the interior of the egg shape but with a gradation swift enough to allow pure white to remain inside the circle, and near that circle radiating outwards (for at least the size of say, and eraser head on a pencil).

  25. Brian Boyko (M)
    Posted November 9, 2009 at 9:08 pm | Permalink | Edit

    My soul is a perfect sphere.

    It is surrounded by an imperfect cube cage.

    The soul is the theoretical, the cage, reality.

  26. False Reality
    Posted November 15, 2009 at 5:05 am | Permalink | Edit

    no offense intended to the people who are posting that their soul is just theoretical or fake, but you shouldn’t be posting comments here if you do think it is a farse. please go live your reality, and let us dream and share.

    bright white veil with a soft golden tinge, swirling around an endlessly circling wave of color and void.

  27. Kadra
    Posted November 23, 2009 at 4:43 pm | Permalink | Edit

    I like to think that my soul is a complete creation of everything that I am and want to be. Everything good and bad that makes me unique, also shapes my soul. I visualize it as a collage of me but moving and its a little ball. – It’s also in my gut, its the only place where there’s enough room. =)

  28. Posted November 25, 2009 at 12:30 am | Permalink | Edit

    so…. any news on this?

  29. Marie
    Posted November 26, 2009 at 9:39 am | Permalink | Edit

    So, where did all the souls go? Any way we can take a peak at other people’s naked self?
    Still enjoying your site more than I can say
    Thanks
    MA

  30. Frieda
    Posted April 20, 2010 at 3:49 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Is this piece of art still active? Can I still give a sneakpreview of my innersoul? I’m wondering what others send in as well :)

  31. david
    Posted April 21, 2010 at 9:17 am | Permalink | Edit

    Yes please!

  32. Laura
    Posted May 3, 2010 at 9:24 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Do you have these on display at all? At the end of my advertising classes, our professor requires us to hand in a dvd of all of our work from that semester. Since my major is Communication Design, his philosophy is that everything should be designed. We have to come up with 3 logos to put into this dvd case and booklet—descriptive mark, symbolic mark, and a typographic mark. I was thinking for the symbolic mark, this would be a very interesting approach to take, but I was wondering if there were any inspirational examples?

  33. Posted May 28, 2010 at 6:34 am | Permalink | Edit

    David- did you end up doing anything with these? I’d be curious to see the result of people’s souls…

4 Trackbacks

  1. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Liam Richardson and Grey Champion. Grey Champion said: newStream ©: What Does Your Soul Look Like? http://bit.ly/OeKSE [...]

  2. By ten! « 100 days of going for it on September 16, 2009 at 3:11 am

    [...] Draw yours! [...]

  3. By soul « G & Ts on September 16, 2009 at 4:01 am

    [...] I read a design blog today that asked me to draw my soul in 5 minutes. Never having thought of what my soul looks like, [...]

  4. By Stretching « On the end of my rope on September 16, 2009 at 10:00 am

    [...] like to stretch yourself?  How about taking part in a group art project for everybody?  Check out What Does your Soul Look Like? on Information is Beautiful.  Draw a black and white picture, and add it to what promises to be a [...]

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

  • Like this? Subscribe for more
    Web Feed Twitter