Blog # 13

In pages 64-80 Of New Media Art, the focus seems to shift mostly to work done on the web, in browser sort of things, that focus more on fooling the user than presenting themselves as art. Mouchette.org for example is a website that tells the user it was created by a 13 year old girl who claims to be an artist. It challenges the ideas on what art is, claiming that if one claims to be an artist and says what they do is art that is all they need. The website has various surveys which certain answers trigger delayed email that after a certain amount of time sends the user an email with suggestive language. To this day no one knows who Mouchette actually is, it just goes to show how the internet creates an environment in which anonymity is very easily kept. Radioqualia is a group whose exhibition was to create a speech emulator to read the 4,141,432 lines of code that built the linux operating system. It was broadcast over the radio wave for 590 days, purposefully creating a work of art that was simply too long for anyone to take in. Shredder is a program created by Mark Napier, its purpose is to show the user the underlying code of any given website, breaking down the aesthetically pleasing facade of all websites. Instead of being pleasing to the eye all websites can be broken down into ugly and unappealing code. Radical Softwar Group's Carnivore takes information from email and instead of stealing information it uses bits of that information as the groundwork for pieces of art.

This section of the book I believe serves to show how artists can use mainstream technology to create scenarios which are deceiving to the viewer. The internet creates a haven in which anyone can pose as anyone else, a forty year old man can claim to be a thirteen year old girl. Artists likewise can use their work to explore the ideas of anonymity creating pieces that ask the user to interpret whats real and whats fake. The idea that an artist can create something to deceive the user is a powerful tool that can be used to make any number of powerful points.