the anti experience of Ed

Ehibited at the 2004 New Forms Festival in Vancouver, BC and the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, India. Upcoming shows in Seattle and Savannah, GA.

Concept developed in collaboration with Jeanne Strole.

“Threads://Porn_Personals.html” is a hybrid software work intended for live installation or as a rendered video presentation. This work combines a edited video clip from a adult film, live content from the World Wide Web, and 3D graphics programming techniques to illuminate a male social behavior in online society.

When the software is run, it connects like a web browser to the “male seeking female” personals section of a community website and downloads the page. These personals are often inappropriately sexually suggestive as men unrealistically seek out sexual partners. The software specifically parses out the headlines of the personals from the downloaded page.

The video is played back within the software and analyzed pixel by pixel for color information. This information is mapped out on a plane of three dimensional reddish sheets of virtual light, abstracting the image and turning it into a onscreen sculptural form. The software detects the motion of sexual intercourse within the adult video clip. From the areas of most intense activity emerge the text of the personal headlines.

As the software runs, the text of the personal headlines pulse around the movement of the performers in the video clip. The viewers of the output of the piece experience the blending of the sometimes salacious text and a visual representation of the desires and fantasies behind those words.