Blens is an iOS app that connects friends and strangers from around the world through the digital analogue of a film swap. The act of blending our photos allows us to discover intersections and juxtapositions of moments in  our lives. By removing a bit of control from the user by way of hiding their photos from each other until the collaboration is completed, we integrate a sense of surprise in the act of superimposing their imagery.

 

Why sets of three images? Rolls of film are a series of images shot in sequence which tells a story, and with Blens each triad (or “set”) can be thought of as a short story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Through the blending of a set of images with each collaborator, we set ourselves up for more interesting and meaningful happenstance intersections and comparisons than if we blended in the context of a single image.