An exhibit called Cell Tango is currently on view at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley. From artists George Legrady and Angus Forbes, it is a computer program running in real time that takes photos submitted by email (to submit send the photo as an attachment with related tags in the title of the email to pix@celltango.org) from anywhere in the world and pairs them with other photos from the internet with similar tags. They appear in webs and clusters based on the key words.
George Legrady spoke about the project at the opening earlier in the semester. He talked about how he believed it was art because he had created the program that was executing his idea. He also brought up the point that the project is open to the whole world, but generally only people who are involved in the community in some way are interested in submitting their photos. Along those lines, there is no editing or censorship involved - pictures go up within about 2 minutes - and so far 'they've been lucky.'
As I sat there I saw many different clusters of photos rotate through the screen, but I found myself thinking how much more interesting the work would be if there were more photos. Then again it is such a small community that I was directly engaged with many of the images that appeared.
Although technically they are supposed to be photos taken from a cell phone, I decided to submit a couple of my own from last year:
tags: friends, party, high school throwback
tags: holidays, trees, friendshipThe implications of this work are very important as our society leans more toward technology. At what point to we draw the line between technology and art? Is designing a computer program enough?
It is also a social experiment - after the opening talk I spoke with one of my professors about how we both had the urge to whip out cameras right there and take a picture of the artist talking about the work to submit to the project. It supports the idea of common associations and the shared human experience. And I love that it is always in flux.
It is also a social experiment - after the opening talk I spoke with one of my professors about how we both had the urge to whip out cameras right there and take a picture of the artist talking about the work to submit to the project. It supports the idea of common associations and the shared human experience. And I love that it is always in flux.
i don't know how i didn't see this post originally... but you are adorbale.
ReplyDeletemaybe i'll sumbit some :)