The internet.

Is a strange concept. One that will never stop confusing me, I wont even try to pretend to understand how it works because I don’t, but one thing a lot of us know is how to use it. With one of its biggest factors being social networking. Its amazing to think that we can now share images, videos and conversations at the click of a button. Its also amazing how we use the Internet on a personal level. When you think about it, to sit alone at a computer, typing and clicking away is such a personal experience, yet what sometimes slips our mind is that we are in fact connected to the rest of the world. Not only does the Internet let us keep in contact with far away friends or even find new friends from across the globe but during this personal experience it seems to let us put our guard down, perhaps saying things we wouldn’t when in a face to face conversation or posting personal matters and thoughts for the eyes of the world.

(Reading that paragraph back to myself and I cant help but hear David Attenborough's voice in my head...and it sounds a lot better when he says it.)

Richard Prince

Know a Guy, 2000 Acrylic on canvas, 216 x 156 inches

After reading multiple interviews with Richard Prince one thing that comes across is this strange sense of humour, its so strange infact that you wonder whether it actually is humour. Prince’s joke paintings went through a developing process until his most famous prints were created. These jokes developed into primarily satirical one liners, making fun at subjects such as religion, the relationship between husband and wife and his own relationships with women. I feel that these pieces may have started as a realise for Prince, helping him to deal with his own troubles by laughing at them. The reasoning behind my own fondness to his work is the pure stupidity of the jokes, there is no doubt that these are bad jokes. Yet by presenting them as a collection it weakens ones sense of humour, and you will eventually find yourself laughing, as one is bound to crack you. Critics make the point that Prince is trying to trigger reflection on the nature of society that would consider a joke funny, but I cant help but wonder whether he just wants to make these people laugh. It is for this reason that the jokes need to be stupid, they wouldn’t break you if they were some sophisticated contemporary humour, he breaks us with the lowest jokes he can find. Rather than question the reasoning of the stupidity with a stern inquisitive look ones face, you find yourself giving in to the bad joke, allowing yourself be equal with everyone else who has previously laughed at these jokes.


I like the idea of taking information which doesn't have any deep important meaning and simply putting it our there because you want to. I feel its the small things in life which make the biggest difference and not everything has to be done to make a big difference to the world. I enjoy the idea of taking funny or random tweets from the Internet and displaying them plainly in public. I feel that by taking them out of context they may become more powerful and gain a larger reaction.

‘I had a friend who was a clown. When he died all his friends went to his funeral in one car.'

Gillian Wearing

Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992–3)

Wearing's work was driven by her interest of people, she loved to discover new things about people and whilst doing so she felt she discovered more about herself. I believe that it was this pure interest which allowed this series of photographs to become so iconic and brilliant. When approached in the street it is normally by people trying to sell you something, whether it be a subscription to sky, a big issue or asking you to sponsor a child; no wonder we all hate these situations. However when Wearing approached the public she asked something quite shocking and unusual, she asked them to write down their thoughts. In some ways I feel that this proposition could scare more people away than a charity worker carrying a clip board, but it was her personal interest that allowed these people similar in nature to allow themselves to express themselves. This relationship between Wearing and the public seemed to beneficial to all involved, Wearing’s proposition allowed the public to express themselves in an artist manner whilst this created Wearing’s own artist expression. It was this interaction and connection between artist and public which made the work so simple, truthful and significant.

I like Wearings work as she helped people to express themselves in times before the likes of twitter and facebook. People often criticise these social network sites as they question just who actually cares? Who wants to read about how other peoples days are going or their random thoughts? But in truth alot of people do, why do you think celeb gossip mags are as popular as they are? Because everybody enjoys reading about other peoples lives, whether its because they have completely different lives to you and you find it interesting or whether its a way to escape from your thoughts about your own life. We're made to care about other people.

I find Wearings work inspiring as she has basically done what my project is about, however before its time. I wanted to take peoples tweets out of the virtual world and into reality however Wearing saw the importance of real people in the real world before the age of social networking sites. And I would be interested to hear her views on such things. I can take inspiration between the connection of artist and public and the raw essence of pen, paper and photography.

FMP : ...you have (1) new message.

'For this project I will look to produce a graphical outcome and explore the possibility of creating public art. I will investigate how we communicate in the ‘virtual world’ looking at how we interact using the internet. I will explore ways in which I can transfer text from the internet into the ‘real world’ documenting reactions. I will also consider the placement and context of my work creating real links between the text and subject.'

This will be a online account of my project, investigating Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites; also attempting to feed in information from sites such as Wikileaks...that is if I ever get my head around it!