// new media class

Akin to the „weeping willow“ - project, the Rose of Jericho taps to the mood data of one‘s social network available on mySpace.com web portal.

The rose of jericho is a flower growing in deserts, like Sahara, and is able to survive very long times without water. When watered, the branches rapidly spread out. The process of curling up and opening is completely reversible and can be repeated many times. In this project, the water supply for the rose is controlled by the friend‘s mood as described on mySpace. Happier or more wholesome state results in plenty of water for the plant, and sadness curbs the water supply all together.

A computer program reads the mood adjective at the friends myspace-account in realtime from the internet. The adjective is compared against a database to map a numerical value to the emotion. This value defines the duration of the water pump controlled by a microcontroller, which is irrigating the rose of jericho. The higher the value the more water is arriving to the plant.