general

From his notes to an exhibition currently up in London, at Seventeen gallery:

Critical Space Headgear (collaboration with Liam Fogerty)
CCD camera, video processing and overlay module, video goggles, mini-DVR, headband
Critical Space Headgear takes video from a head mounted camera and runs it through a system that overlays text onto the live video image. Right now there are 2 modes: Critical Text Mode which overlays the text "What does this tell me that isn't already obvious?" in the center of the image, and YouTube Emulation Mode which overlays the YouTube logo in the bottom right hand corner of the image. The new video image with overlaid text/logo is then sent to the video goggles for viewing and navigation.

Surfin' USA
single channel video with sound
In this piece I "surf" popular "viral" news and Web 2.0 sites while in Critical Text Mode in the Headgear, which helps me keep a distance from what I see on screen. The banality of the internet is something to be admired, but after 15 years of it, I have begun to occasionally ask a question or two.

Even Better than the Real Thing
single channel video with sound
Here I show Liam a number of images of internet and Youtube memes which I've printed on paper while he's in YouTube Emulation Mode in the Headgear - they should look really amazing to him, right? Liam is essentially existing in a real-time "internet emulator" so if emulation really works then yes of course they do :)

Pioneer Nintendo hacker and data mosher Davis seques into a more "meta" mode for his current exhibit. One senses a certain lack of reverence here for new media, "professional surfing," and other forms of expression that are changing our consciousness, nay, the world.

trendlet on YouTube--processing crying baby sounds with AutoTune.

"From my experience he keeps you going with that kind of malarkey until you lose your temper and then he lectures you about your internet etiquette. You may disagree but I think he is unstable in the same way ____ is. For sure he thinks he is much smarter than he is."

"Arthur Koestler...once wrote that there were two planes of experience, the tragic and the trivial, and that artists and writers are blessed--cursed, really--with seeing 'everyday experience' on the tragic plane, the 'angle of the eternal.'"

--Bernard Avishai, The New Yorker via TPM (TPM is cited because it gives a permalink as opposed to making you Digg it or whatever).

Julia, 32, Art Consultant:

"I was working as a docent at our local museum and a traveling show came through of Egyptian artifacts, including an honest-to-gosh mummy in a glass case. This attraction was seriously hyped in the press kit and our local media picked it up. 'See the Mummy!' It was like a carnival.
"We handle a lot of school field trips. One day several busloads of kids came into the museum, causing some chaos at the Egypt entrance. We docents were called in to create some manageable lines at the entry area.
"I was herding a class of third or fourth graders over to the place where they would form a line. I knew they were all very excited about seeing the mummy. But I had no idea how much till I reached down and momentarily touched my hand to a kid's chest, keeping him back from the entrance. His little heart was beating like a pneumatic hammer--it felt like it was going to explode out of his shirt."