Tower of Babel
At first glance, Tim Berners Lee’s text seems to be an answer to the problem of Jorge Luis Borges: the total sum of human knowledge set up in a way that it is comprehensible to move from work to work. However, the World Wide Web is more analogous to the Library of Babel than it seems at first glance; even though the system of hyperlinks makes all information easily accessible, the same issues plague the user of the web that plague the inhabitants of the library. On the web the majority of useful information is inaccessible. Whether because the language is different, the text relies on foreknowledge or obscure jargon to decipher, or the text is hidden in the system of hyperlinks inaccessible due to the volume of websites it seems that the required site can never be found. Furthermore, because a few depositories of knowledge are more well known the are simply hyperlinked together, and it is near impossible to find new information. In our search for the website we need, due to how the system of hyperlinks is set up we often find ourselves hyperlinked back to the same sites we were on before. The World Wide Web is unlimited and cyclical.
Line Project
My every day centres around Washington Square Park. It is what measures my footsteps. My spatial “speech acts” (Certeau, p. 97) of walking read the name of this park multiple times a day. And, theoretically, as a result through this park, how I am forced by unknown forces to traverse this park, structures of power could be ascertained. However, this park contains more than just statistical data to be analyzed. I do not just pass through this park through necessity. With my line project, through recording why I pass through the park, and the subject of my thoughts I attempt to show the conflict between the idea of human structures to be analyzed, such as how Foucault influenced the Certeau’s essay as an attempt to analyze the city, and the idea of human life as “something that defies all calculation” (Certeau, p. 110), as “Dasein” (Certeau, p. 109) (an agent of history rather than as a subject). For the first idea, I portray the spatial necessity of me walking through the park to fulfil my needs. For the second I portray, my thoughts that colour the park, or in other words what “can be dreamed” (Certaue, p. 109) about the park.
Newspaper Project Text
My newspaper project was a playful attempt to highlight how media is used as a means of control. For this project, I replaced the headlines of the front pages of newspapers with quotes from the movie They Live, a 1980s alien movie. Similar to how the aliens in They Live hide subliminal messages in their media, which Nada, the main character, can only see with his sunglasses on, my newspapers show the subliminal messages hidden in our media. “I was trying to create ... a way of visualizing something right in front of our face.” (Sounds, New Museum)
Pattern Writing
For this project, I abstracted three objects from my dorm room in patterns: a Maneki-neko, a Mamiya Super 23 and a water bottle. After tracing these objects I created patterns on fields of colours to help highlight the different natures of these objects.
Colour Writing
In the first essay of Colour Goes Electric, attacks against colour photography are discussed, namely that it is too objective and that it is vulgarly consumerist. These two critiques are seen as contradictory and are subsequently dismissed. However, Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction discusses the “nearness” of photographs, which serves as the basis for their objectivity. Benjamin concludes his essay on the thought that the very nearness of photography allows for more effective political malleability in photographs, linking these two critiques of colour photography into one. Playing on the “commercial gimmick” of colour photography (as dubbed by Andrei Tarkovsky) in this photograph discussing the hidden subjective messages of advertising, the bright saturated colours mimic advertisements portrayal of the world. Specifically, the saturated cyan in the advertisement in the photograph stands out in contrast to the silent scene, highlighting the lone figure in the advertisement.
