Social Media - Pre Internet

With my project Facebook Intruder, I aim to explore the permeability of online social networks (specifically Facebook) by way of a fabricated online profile. Executing this project and achieving its goals without the Internet would be impossible. The entire objective of the project is to gauge the legitimacy and pertinence of social interactions that stay online and never cross into physical interaction.

That being said, if the goals for the project were slightly altered, I imagine that a variant of it could be executed pre-internet through written letters and the post office. Who knows how often mailing a letter to a random person and striking up a dialogue actually happens, but its lack of immediacy would certainly make the line of dialogue between the parties much different than a line of dialogue between random people online. I figure doing this through mail to be how the concept of “pen-pals” was initially formed. In that regard, it’s not an unfamiliar concept.

Social Media Artist

Man Bartlett

Born: 1981

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

His work includes drawings, collages and online performance art.

Often often uses Twitter to communicate/carry-out his social media projects. Works include:

#TheseusHand - A project where he had people tweet pictures of hand jesters which form either a one or a zero. The images were then used to create a series of instructions.

#GreyMatter - A project where people contacted him via Twitter or in an art gallery and told Man where they were from. Man would then then represent this place by tying a piece of colored string to a dowel rod.

#24hClerk - A project where people contacted him via twitter and told him their dreams. He would then "price" these dreams on a chart.

manbartlett.com

Twitter

I made a Twitter profile a few months ago out of fear of no longer being “with it.” I figured that its pervasiveness into pop culture had denoted its pertinence. Every politician, musician, artist, etc. that I was interested in had an account and seemed to be reaping its benefits. Since then, I’ve periodically logged into my own account to try and get something out of it… to no avail! I continually found myself asking myself different variations of, “who cares?” or “what is the point of this?” or “what does this mean?” or “how do I do this?”

Thankfully this “Twitter assignment” has given me the opportunity to spend significantly more time with it than I had before, exploring its facets. In doing so, I‘ve begun to turn the corner with my understanding of its purposes. Before my more thorough investigation, I figured that Facebook could provide everything that I needed out of social-media websites. This leads me to my (obvious) Twitter realization… unlike Facebook; Twitter provides a streamlined forum for people to connect with complete strangers who share the same interests. It’s a great tool to find out the very latest news, facts, etc. on whatever you’re interested in.

Appropriation Work II

Its That Time

2012

A composite vector-graphic image which was composed entirely from appropriated imagery from the short film, The Nature of Sound (1948). I found the footage from the short to be very reminiscent of Cold War educational and propaganda films that I’ve seen. I think it is that sense of paranoia and dread that I get from those films that informed this piece.

Compare, Contrast

Although they were both appropriation assignments, working on the collage and the “remix” were completely different processes, for me.

The most obvious difference was the materiality of the two. I don’t think that I’ve cut up magazines and pasted them together since grade school (I don’t really miss it, either). On the other hand, working with video is a familiar process.

The largest difference between them was that the collage assignment had a more defined objective (to create a piece that represented our strengths and weaknesses) while the remix assignment did not. Having a defined objective like that makes the creative process much easier, but at the same time I feel like the results are much more contrived.

Not having an objective for the remix, forced me to search for what the material meant to me. Ultimately, I found the footage to be very reminiscent of Cold War educational and propaganda films that I’ve seen. I think it is that sense of paranoia and dread that I get from those films that informed my piece, It’s That Time.

I’ve never vectorized images from video footage before, and I really enjoyed the process. I think that it allowed me to take the raw material from the video really far away from its source. Initially, I felt that it was necessary vectorize the images from the video because the resolution of the footage was so bad. Later, I decided to exaggerate the affect because I think that it increased the anonymity of the images, which reinforced the piece conceptually.

Appropriation Work

It Came From Planet B! Videos

2012

Duration: 4:16 and 3:21

I appropriated video and sound from collection of youtube videos to create 2 video intermissions for the theatrical production, It Came From Planet B! The videos continued the narrative of the production during costume and set changes. The majority of the footage was appropriated from an array space/alien movies and television shows.

Below are some stills from the videos:

 

Corinne Vionnet

Born in Switzerland in 1969.

Corinne's most popular work to date is a photo series called Photo Opportunities. The images are Photoshoped composites of tourist photos of famous landmarks (Leaning Tower of Piza, Eiffel Tower, etc.) which she appropriates from the internet. Often using hundreds of photos, she stacks them onto each other and then alters the opacity to create an impressionistic image of the landmark.

Here are some examples from the series: