THE
ACTIONS OF FRED FOREST
64
WEB SITE / INSTALLATION
MEMORY-PICTURES
INTERNET
FEST 2005, GREAT HALL, FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE, PARIS
MARCH – MAY 2005
WORK
COMMISSIONED BY THE NATIONAL AUDIOVISUAL INSTITUTE (INA) OF FRANCE
In
this web-based work, which was also the basis for an installation
at the Ministry of Culture in Paris, the artist sublimates the image
search function of Google so as to allow Internet users to create
their own works of art in the form of montages of images culled
at random from the depths of the “memory bank of all memory”
based on key words they choose and define. Produced jointly with
the artist (the primary author of the web site), a digital avatar
(the individual’s “guide” through the labyrinth
of the web), and scores of anonymous and unwitting assistants (the
people who originally posted the images that found their way into
individual’s collage), these collages constituted “collaborative”
works of art, which the artist invited his “collaborators”
to send to him via surface mail to be “authenticated”
as the bona fide co-creations of a recognized “master”
the old-fashioned way—i.e., by signing his name to them …
free of charge!
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