What happens when sociability reaches the furthest corners of your desktop? Ask Dublin-based artist Jonah Brucker-Cohen, who recently released two new Mac OSX plug-ins that are sure to win the heart of anyone who likes to live, all the time, on the grid. StatusPlay and PublicDesktop, two interactive experiments, add sociability to Apple desktop applications iChat and Desktop Images. Using the former, track what your peers are reading, listening to, and perhaps most importantly, with whom they are chatting. In the context of Brucker-Cohen's StatusPlay, surveillance equals social engagement. PublicDesktop allows users to share a canvas of sorts -- a canvas of the desktop variety. These applications are somewhat buried on Brucker-Cohen's site full of gems and ideas, but don't be fooled: StatusPlay and PublicDesktop are potent social softwares, and at the very least they make communing with friends and family via the CPU more lively and enmeshed experiences. -- Karen Kuslansky