To take part collect a sticker from Contact, CUBE or ThePublicSpace. A project by Grennan and Sperandio. Written by Drew Hemment. Winner of the Futuresonic 2008 Art Award Commission, supported by Piccadilly Partnership. To take part collect a sticker from Contact, ThePublicSpace or CUBE, or click sticker icon below to download and make your own. More Info   Everyone is invited to join the Rubbing Shoulders social network, promoted on billboards in the city by Grennan and Sperandio's cartoons and identified by specially designed stickers that every member of the network will wear. When meeting people across the city: strangers in the network overcome social barriers with a secret handshake; those that know each other already give/receive back rubs; when meeting non-members, they play with keeping them out of their 'personal space bubble.' A truly citywide art project that aims to, "bring the people of Manchester closer together." More Info Rubbing Shoulders is a project on safe hands-on social networking. On joining the Rubbing Shoulders social network, people are given a set of instructions on how to interact with people known and unknown: When meeting people NOT in the Rubbing Shoulders social network, participants are instructed not to let them enter their 'personal space bubble.' This causes playful scenes as people in queues and in crowds try to maintain a distance of 50cm between themselves and others around them. When meeting other people who ARE in the Rubbing Shoulders social network, people are able to greet each other with a secret handshake. This highly formal social interaction can be a discussion point on how different people usually greet each other. On meeting someone else in the social network they know very well, members ask each other if they have a stiff neck. If the answer is yes, and if they are invited, they give/receive back rubs as an antidote to online social networking and the back problems caused by hours hunching over the computer. The medium is the massage.