Most of our media culture is devoted to the single aim of encouraging consumption. We have been conditioned to the point where we can no longer distinguish between want and need, while we are only now becoming aware of the global catastrophic consequences of our appetite for natural resources. This problem has been greatly compounded by the export of our consumer media culture to what was once called the Third World. Now we must compete for a dwindling pool of resources with the exponentially increasing populations that we once exploited.
My goal is to create art that appropriates the images of the consumer culture and redirects the viewer’s attention back to the consequences of unchecked consumption.
Interactive art has several advantages for this type of message. First, the viewer becomes an active participant in the artwork, exploring the images that they have already been conditioned to respond to. Second, the global interconnections of exported culture and exploited resources can be concretely represented in the links between images and video that the viewer selects. Finally, when the viewer performs the physical action of clicking buttons and finding themselves moved from point A to B, they are forming the type of strong mental connections that can compete with the media connections formed through endless repetition.
S.C.