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Just submitted this gif to the Transnumériques – Videoformes 2015 award.

This gif is a compilation of screenshots done by the [loveMachine] over the course of 6 months. All selected pictures contain Facebook error messages.

The [loveMachine] does screen captures every time it runs. Because the script works as a screenless process, this visual feedback allows me to understand what it is actually doing on Facebook and helps me adapt the script accordingly.

Sometimes, Facebook throws those warning messages whether I’m liking too fast or too much, or if a post has been deleted while I’m trying to like it or just when Facebook bugs a little also.

All these assembled into this stroboscopic animation shows us how similar, boring and surprisingly anarchic these messages can be. One would expect that Facebook has strong graphical requirements on how to display a warning message. But these captures done over a long period of time shows that both messages and layout may vary a lot over time.

Facebook error messages, as a timelapse animation, shows us how unstable the platform is. It’s a constant evolving organism of which we can barely see the changes when used at “normal” speed.