The Web as Art

This video was absolutely AMAZING. The way Jonathan Harris thought about his projects were inspirational and u nbelievably meticulous. I always thought about what I’d do with the variety of things that I like to collect, but could never find a purpose. This video opened a whole new perspective on the idea of the web and public yet private information as art. He repurposed the information that is uploaded to the Internet daily. I think the best part of this “we feel” project is that it makes me feel uncomfortable. This is what helps me solidify the idea that to me, this is art. Art is supposed to make you feel something, especially uncomfortable. This feeling derives from the question of privacy. Can anything put in the Internet truly be considered private although many people aim for that. We don’t actually think about people using our information as content in their own projects. It’s creepy especially since the topic he chose to use was feelings, the most personal information people put on the Internet. This is information meant to be shared only with their friends, but by him extracting those sentences and adding pictures to the sentences he humanizes the thoughts as something more than just text found on the Internet. It’s invasive, but very intriguing. I do wonder if these pictures he finds on he Internet legal for use without the user’s permission. Or do users give up the right to require permission as soon as they submit the information online?