Tony Oursler was born in new york in 1957. He completed a BA in fine arts at the California Institute for the Arts, Valencia, California in 1979. His art covers a range of mediums working with video, sculpture, installation, performance and painting. Oursler's work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Documenta VIII, IX, Kassel, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Skulptur Projekte, Munster, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, the tate, Liverpool. The artist currently lives and works in New York City.

http://www.tonyoursler.com

I love Ourslers work, I have done since I saw it exhibited at a contemporary digital art gallery in barcelona back in 2005. These projected faces onto simple body sulptures have conversations with eachother and really impressed me.
His work spans 3 decades and there is so much and all of it seems so crazy, bright, big and loud, I love it!

I've been thinking about something i said when i was looking at Robbie Cooper's work, about the body being an empty shell and our lives being lived in the digial world. I wonder if we could map faces onto masks. I've seen some people map faces onto faces, but could we map faces, or body parts onto masks being worn by people... I've jumped the gun a bit because I want to try a couple of other things first. but this could be good.

Status updates:

1 I'm just making a sandwich
2 I just had a shower
3 I just shit myself
4 Hey, I just posted a new photo!
5 PC 4 PC 
6 LOL Frape
7 Who wants to go to the cinema tonight?
8 I miss the days when halloween was about showing off costumes not clevage.
9 I like this
10 LOL
11 EL-OH-EL
12 ROFL
13 LAMO
14 grl u lk wel sxc lol
15 Less than three
16 Yum
17 What's in it?

1-4 I noticed that when we talk on Fb and other sites, we seem to ignore most grammer. When i first wrote out the script I used "I've" however the more I thought about it the more I realised that online, we just say I and completly ignore the 've.
Looking at the above paragraph, perhaps I've forgotten when to use the 've...

5 Picture Comment for Picture comment - this is an old Myspace reference.

8 Is an actual status I found around halloween when i wrote and filmed this.

9 I like this is the blatant facebook reference. When said it feels forced and fake.

10-13 Laugh out loud, Rolling on the floor laughing, Laughing my ass off.

14 I tried to get myself and my actors to try text speak. Ths does not come accross so well in the film.

15 less than three = <3

17/17 a response to 1

So I'm going to do a video test of an idea I've had involving the habits and language of Facebook and the online world.
This is to see how it would look if we actually acted like we do online in the "real" world. I say "real" because as I've discussed, Facebook is just as real in a sense.

The idea is to have one person say their status - giving a boring update of their life and having the others comment like they would or by saying "I like this". I also want to explore phrases and language such as LOL (Laugh out loud).

The third image is an example of a "frape" which would also be included in the film.

www.youwereinmydream.com


An interactive animation where your face becomes the character in the film. Using a live webcam stream they put your face on a monkey (in the online version) and you click to continue the animation.
It was created by Australlian artists Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine.

"We wanted to use utopic imagery, and paradise is often portrayed as beautiful untouched nature where the balance of life is in harmony. There was something about imagining yourself into children's stories that played a part in the concept as well. This is the motivation behind using an image of the viewer's face as part of the animation. This we hope gives you a strange out-of-body experience and make you feel like you're in a dream."

I had a quick go at this on their website and it is great fun. It's a simple idea (though not simple to make) and interactive and alive. I really like it. 
If I could find a way to keep this simplicity and hold my concept behind it that would be great. perhaps put the viewer inside a character in a social networking situation?

So if Facebook is this extension of us and is treated as The real World by so many people. How about a film/piece where people can dive into other peoples lives and totally mess them up.

I could look at in what ways they could do this and the cause/effect ripple is causes. From simple things like "Ben is gay" or "Ben just shit himself" to extremes like in the article below.

As a film with characters it could be quite simple. 4 people, all hack eachother and don't see the repercussions until they arrive home? But as something interactive, I might try a few things, such as leaving Cara's FB open around uni and maybe at a couple of `internet cafes/people's homes and see what happens? See who is willing to get involved and what they write.

FACEBOOK RAPE. or FRAPE. 
"the access of a Facebook account by a third party, unknown to the account's owner, which alters and adds humiliating or otherwise derogatory words to the account's profile for the purpose of a prank. The act usually takes place between friends after one leaves their Facebook account logged in." - Urban Dictionary

A horrible but perfect example. Thanks Ebaumsworld.
This also shows how Facebook "friends" are not real friends. The above example shows a horrible and extreme "Frape" but the reaction from this guys friends, who should know him well enough to see this isn't really him, instantly start to attack him.

"Frape is at best defamation of character and at worst a form of identity theft as Facebook has in a very real way become an extension of the self."

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE


I read this on a blog and it's spot on. If Facebook is the latest extension of the self, then FRAPE can damage lives. Obviously it would be idiotic to compare the act to rape, and that's what makes the term so offensive. 
But people take Facebook so seriously, changing your FB status is a big deal, if you haven't put 'in a relationship' then to some people you aren't, no matter how long you've been with someone. What you say on there matters, whether we like it or not, people will use FB against you one way or another. 

You have to take it seriously, you have to treat it like real life, because it is.

I went back to FB mostly for photos of things and for the Events, because I'm such an organised person i found it handy to use to find out what i was meant to be at. However this can be done without Facebook if we pay attention i think.

My friend did better than me and has been off facebook for over a year.

2 of the points she made really stood out:

• I found that the vast majority of things on Facebook were simply not interesting to me, and it was frustrating sifting through so much irrelevant content to read the few posts I was interested in; especially as, for me personally, there wasn’t a core group of a few people who posted good content, but quite a mix.
• I became quite uncomfortable with how many people I was artificially connected to- people who interest me are people I stay in contact with outside of Facebook.

So we really are just sitting, staring and surfing, trying to find something amongst all the status updates and photos of peoples babies etc...
Also the idea of "friends" and adding people you meet once and never see again, yet because of Facebook you remain friends.
I got drunk a few weeks ago and added a London art student named Charles Mason. No idea who he is but he accepted, he even accepted that we are 'Close Friends' which means our status updates are received personally. We've never met or even spoken, so it's weird that he accepted me.So I really like this idea that we're just surfing... aimlessly... through all the junk we put on there...

It's everybody's favourite Green amphibian, Kermit The Frog, talking about 'Likes' on Facebook. Notice the 2 Bazilion likes for cats.

Cooper's interest is in how we interact with the screen. he has done more than just video games, this was his first part in a series. He has recorded it on HD because it captures more frames and therefore more expressions - micro expressions. It allows us to almost see into the users world. 
He has used a blank room so that we are not distracted by their social world, he hasn't given us any information to be distracted as well as looking slightly like advertising.
Interview Video HERE

Cooper is definitely someone I'm going to need to do a lot more research on, it sounds like he's going in a similar direction to me in his work... or i'm going a similar direction to him.

Immersion is a video piece that takes a look at the user rather than the screen. The video shows clips of young people playing violent and racing video games. However the camera is on top of the screen facing them, so we see their reactions to the game. 
This study into the user is really interesting to watch. Some of the boys seem to laugh and shout at the game, but most just stare intently at the screen, occasionally licking their lips. One girl stares for so long she literally starts to cry. Another shows no emotion at all whilst 'gangster rap' is blaring from the screen.
An older boy has a verbal dialogue with the game, shouting "Come here so I can kill you", which is quite unnerving, as he seems to be looking at us.

I know I've made a video similar to this 'Addiction' but it might be interesting to film myself browsing FB, just to see how interested I actually am or whether I too have a blank, lifeless expression.