1. Does the project address the asymmetrical power relations inherent in global media flows? Does your curatorial work attempt to create “counter” flows?
2. You paraphrase Niranjan’s argument that “works on the Internet are being perceived differently from one audience to another thus proving the claim of Internet art as a ‘universal form of artwork’ is a fallacy.” This argument seems to connect to notions of linguistic relativity and analogous concepts that have emerged out of visual anthropology—most notably Fay Ginsberg’s use of the term 'parallax view' to suggest a kind of globally mediated misrecognition. Do you see this work as in dialogue with these theories of globalization/media? And if so, are you more interested in the disjunctures of inevitable misrecognition or with the potential of convergence via remote curation? Do you have a stake in the outcome either way?
3. Why is the “content” of this remote curation less crucial than the curatorial structure itself? Will “content” have an impact on the kinds of questions raised above?
1. By choosing to depict what you call “disenfranchised cultures” within a predefined framework of opposition (vis-à-vis an asymmetric relationship towards those of privilege), you seem to be shaping the voice of your projected subject before you’ve had a chance to let them interact with the device itself. Have you thought about ways that your projected subjects might surprise you? Are they part of the "audience" you want to reach? Are you willing to relinquish your authorship if your projected subjects decide to use your device in unpredictable ways?
2. Early film history evolved initially along two very different paths based on a divergence between the Lumière brothers’ light weight (portable) camera vs. Edison and Dickson’s clunkier Kinetograph/Kinetoscope devices. Because of the differences in portability, the two different apparatuses were used to record dramatically divergent kinds of imagery. The Lumière device was used in public spaces to catch everyday “life on the run” while Edison’s device was used primarily in a fixed location so that specific spectacles could be performed in front of it. This meant that while the Lumière device was laying the groundwork for documentary and modernist avant-garde traditions, Edison’s device fit better into a Vaudevillean performative tradition (i.e. Tom Gunning’s “Cinema of Attraction”). Classic photo-booth practices seem to have a similar relationship to spectacle (i.e. in the way that people “ham it up” for the camera). Additionally, Japanese purikura booths have greatly extended the possibilities of photo-booth as spectacle by encouraging the final product to be "tweaked," i.e. modulated with brightly colored accent marks and even words (drawing here on the manga tradition). Do you anticipate your apparatus as having a similar relationship to spectacle? Does it distinguish itself from the more portable version of a digital camera in a way that draws upon this distinction? In this sense, how do you anticipate people using this device? Is the fact that they're isolated in a confined space important? Have you thought about accentuating this confinement? What performative props do you think they might "bring" to the camera?
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