Rene Christen
Project date: January 2008
submitted 2009-01-13 17:37:34
Call: After the Net
Description:
'1992-404' is a memorial to dead web links which pokes fun at precious thinking about online identity, 1992 being the beginning of the Internet in its popular form and 404 being the error code a web browser receives when trying to view a dead link. The piece appears as an appropriation of Maya Lins' Vietnam War Memorial, not to degrade the war memorial in any way, but rather to emphasise the triviality of the subject matter by comparing the two. A physical installation of this piece then extends the idea of these ephemeral identities being imbued with physical mortality. The World Wide Web community are invited to contribute to this project, to add their own dead links that they come across to this memorial, each one being engraved into a black wall of digital marble.
Format: Java Applet created with Processing
Genre: NetArt, Media Installation
URL: renechristen.net/wrapped/memorial/memorial.html
Artist Bio:
Rene Christen is an emerging Australian artist who has been creating interactive media in a number of areas since 2001. Outside of graduating with an honors degree in Electronic Arts and continuing on to receive a scholarship to do his Masters in the field, he has been exhibiting internationally, his work ranging from educational games for children isolated in Australia's outback to interactive gallery and public installation, performance, and a variety of web work.