Focus: Mary Flanagan

In this weeks reading, I came across Mary Flanagan who is a digital  media artist who "investigates the relationship between everyday life and emerging technologies through art. (p. 280)".  I'm always a fan of artistic portrayal of slice of life.  I prefer watching movies that consist of that topic.  I like listening to music about everyday life and so on. I wanted to look at what Mary has worked on and I found her website that shows her art.  Here is a few examples I thought were intriguing.

[search]

This is based on the concept of how internet users use search engines.  People would rather use search engines instead of doing face to face communication or go to a library.  Whatever the results are whether they are useful or not, the person would rather sift through the misinformation than do physical research.  As Flanagan describes, 

"Users click on words in the live search feed as they find words in others’ searches which interest them. These words separate, and conduct their own searches on themselves. Users can drag two words together which interest them to produce associative searches. At this point, who is the searcher? What is being searched?"

This concept is exactly how I feel about my internet use.  I would rather use search engines than go to the library and no matter how far the links go down the "rabbit hole" I keep on going until I find my way back out or just start all over again.  This is how I get lost on Youtube. 

[from the ranks]

This is a conceptual art based on a video game created by the US Army for recruiting purposes.  Flanagan states that where she comes from, it's either farming or military.  In this art, Flanagan takes screenshots of the game and then has a computer embroider a design that juxtapose the familiar feeling of home and the dangers of war and violence all based on information brought from a video game.  As Flanagan states, "The works engage with the role of the military in my everyday life, from the standardized tests and recruitment visits to family memorabilia, and how present feelings about these experiences are discovered in contemporary computer-based images".

The reason behind this concept is very familiar to me.  I was in the Navy for 6 years and I've met plenty of people who has been a "military" family for several generations.  All the know is the military, the military is their family.  I've also known military personnel that joined because of things they saw in a movie or in video games, thinking that is what the military is all about.  This project is a bulleye on the metaphor of military life.

[borders]

This was based on a great quote from writer Henry David Thoreau in which he states, “Two or three hours’ walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect…”  Flanagan grab the ball from this quote and went beyond the wanderlust.  In an online multiplayer game, Flanagan would make her character wander aimlessly winding up to the games "edge of the world".  This facade of endless boundaries in videos was capture via screenshots; "exposing the algorithmic nature of landscape rendering and the cut-off points between subscribers or those who have virtual ownership".

Though these images reveal the boundaries of a game that is suppose to be a vast world.  It still seems like a realistic parallel of the world.  The game shows an endless world but has to place a border because the game has to continue, there is a story to the game or point to the character's life.  It can't be wasted walking aimlessly.  In my endeavors in the Navy, I would travel and explore a new location, basically having an endless path to an adventure but I knew I had to limit myself plus there were limits placed on me by forces I could not control.  In retrospect, my travels exposed the nature of my landscapes and comfortability of being in a new place plus the restrictions I was place upon only to be able to continue my life story/journey.  Sounds cheesy but it's the truth.