Personal World Map by Roxana Torre

http://www.personalworldmap.org/

The growth and expansion of multiple news outlets and accesibility of the Internet sometimes fools us into believing the world is "shrinking," that we have legitimate access to information and knowledge from around the world. Roxana Torre's personal world map is a reminder of the legitimate restraints placed on an individual's worldview by the realities of time, space and monetary constraints. The work is an interactive map, where the world is distorted around a chosen "center" to fit the "traveler's" time and budget contraints. That information is compared with legitimate flight data to create a personal world map which displays just how much of the planet the user actually has physical access to.

Jenny Holzer

Jenny Holzer creates text-based artworks, often displaying them by means of projection on structural exteriors around the world. In addition, she has created interesting LED displays to present her series of politically charged adages and expressions.

Her best-known work, Truisms, consists of a series of statements, at once political and provocative. Often the phrases presented, while provocative, appear to be simple, almost common sense, however the presentation itself might bring about deeper thought about the nature of what exactly we think we know. Holzer has displayed these phrases in various ways, including projection, street posters, websites and large-scale LED billboards. Her works have been printed on T-shirts and posters, and carved into stone benches and cast as bronze plaques.

 

A User’s Guide to Détournement -- Guy Debord & Gil Wolman

Another attempt to strictly define art as a concept and set boundaries for the work of others. Debord and Wolman may try hard to maintain that they are defying such definitions, but suggesting that previous works and styles are "out-of-date," and therefore no longer hold any merit, is just as elitest as the suggestion that classical art is somehow a more legitimate artform by virtue of its acceptance by establishment propagandists. 

Just create something, anything. 

If you say it is art, then it is art. 

Other people don't have to like it; other people don't have to agree. 

But this need to generalize the drawing of strict definitions for what is and what is not acceptable as a work of "art" is ridiculous.  

Project #3: Subvertisement

My subvertisement of an ad for Chiquita bananas is based on the original posted below it.

Grafik Dynamo

by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippit

http://www.turbulence.org/Works/dynamo/

Grafik Dynamo consists of three frames of equal size, arranged similar to a comic strip. A series of images -- usually photos -- randomly appear in each of the panels, refreshing to bring new graphics every few seconds. Above the pictures, a randomly selected speech balloon containing a short statement or exclamation often appears. In addition, the panels have white retangular overlays across the bottom in which various short sentences or action statements often appear. Unlike the messages in the balloons, which appear to be random snippets of legitimate conversation, these short sentences are somewhat similar to the narration often found in comic books. The result is a constantly generating graphic novel of sorts.

One's mind searches to create a narrative to fit the random series of images and captions. It is amazing how often the pictures and words work together to create potential stories, both comic and tragic. At the least, Grafik Dynamo is an entertaining diversion. At best, it provides an interesting comment on the random quality of modern communication and artistic expression. 

WiFi-SM Feel The Pain

“WiFi-SM is an Internet connected wireless device that you can fix on any part of your body. It automatically detects the information from approximately 4,500 news sources worldwide updated continuously and analyses them looking for specific keywords such as death, kill, murder, torture, rape, war, virus etc.
Each time the text of the news contains one of these keywords, your WiFi-SM device is activated through the WiFi network and provides you with an electric impulse. This impulse is calibrated so that you can feel a certain amount of pain, but is completely safe.”

Christopher Bruno's project, 'WiFi-SM,' advertises a fictional WiFi-enabled, wearable patch that gives the wearer a powerful jolt of electricity whenever any one of up to 4,500 news sources around the world produce selected keywords. Providing wearers with a shock allows them to 'feel' global pain, thus becoming more in touch with the world around them and assuaging any personal guilt they may theoretically feel at their own lack of legitimate feeling for the tragedies of their fellow man. Participants may to personalize the experience with the so-called "P2P (Pain-to-Pain) technology" which lets them set individual keywords and pain threshholds.

Bruno's "ad" highlights the pretense of modern existence and raises legitimate questions about desensitization in an era of advanced technology. With so much information available to us, people have to make choices about what they wish to view and read. Is it just human nature to avoid the negative? After all, we're all busy and it is easier to just play another round of Bejeweled than to give significant thought to the suffering of unknown people on the other side of the world. Yeah, and it is easier to just write a check once a year and send it off to some faceless charity than it is to seriously examine the state of the world and determine what actions might be taken to better it.