e-poltergeist

Thomson, J. and Craighead, A. 2001. e-poltergeist. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 03 Mar - 08 Jul 2001

CreatorsThomson, J. and Craighead, A.
Description

E-poltergeist takes over the user’s internet browser, automatically initiating Web searches without their permission. Web-based artwork which explores issues of user control when confronted with complex technological systems, questioning the limits of digital interactive arts as consensual reciprocal systems. e-poltergeist was a major web commission that marked an early stage of research in a larger enquiry by Craighead and

Thomson into the relationship between live virtual data, global communications networks and instruction-based art, exploring

how such systems can be re-contextualised within gallery environments.

e-poltergeist presented the 'viewer' with a singular narrative by using live internet search-engine data that aimed to create a

perpetual and virtually unstoppable cycle of search engine results, banner ads and moving windows as an interruption into the

normal use of an internet browser. The work also addressed the ‘de-personalisation’ of internet use by sending a series of

messages from the live search engine data that seemed to address the user directly: 'Is anyone there?'; 'Can anyone hear me?',

'Please help me!'; 'Nobody cares!' e-poltergeist makes a significant contribution to the taxonomy of new media art by dealing

with the way that new media art can re-address notions of existing traditions in art such as appropriation and manipulation,

instruction-based art and conceptual art.

e-poltergeist was commissioned ($12,000) for 010101: Art in Technological Times, a landmark international exhibition presented

by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which bought together leading international practitioners working with emergent

technologies, including Tatsuo Miyajima, Janet Cardiff, Brian Eno. Peer recognition of the project in the form of reviews include:

Curating New Media. Gateshead: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Cook, Sarah, Beryl Graham and Sarah Martin ISBN:

1093655064; The Wire; http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2000/12/40464 (review by Reena Jana); Leonardo (review

Barbara Lee Williams and Sonya Rapoport) http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/feb2001/ex_010101_willrapop.html

All the work is developed jointly and equally between Craighead and her collaborator, Jon Thomson, Slade School of Fine Art.

Year2001
Web address (URL)http://www.thomson-craighead.net/imgs/010101CHAT.PDF
Publication dates
Published2001
Output mediaWeb-based artwork

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Thomson, J. and Craighead, A. 2001. CNN Interactive just got more interactive. Tate Britain, London 06 Mar - 03 Jun 2001

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