The website www.mouchette.org is an interesting new media art work that deals with anonymity and popularity on the internet. On the front page of the site Mouchette claims to be a 13 year old girl living in Amsterdam. However, after consistently reloading the page, her location changes from living in Amsterdam, to living in Walla Walla, living in a garden, living in Eindhoven and so on. Even her profile picture changes when the page reloads. Each pictures is of someone completely different. The site also contradicts itself by theme and content.
It can be very dark at times. It often talks about death and suicide. The link suicide kit describes of a kit, "that allows children of all ages to play suicide. It's a new toy." The site feels outdated but I like how it's interactive. Responses from the visitors keep the site new and fresh.The more the visitor explores the site, the more they realize that Mouchette is not a 13 year but someone older or a possible group of people.
The internet is a powerful tool of communication. It also grants the power to assume any role a person desires. People have become extremely popular just because of their internet identity. In pop culture, a prime example of this is Tila Tequila who currently has over 3.5 million friends on the social networking site myspace. In mouchette.org, Mouchette has links to sites that praise and adore her but also those that criticize her(http://ihatemouchette.org/ .) The site also talks about the name as a trademark. This phenomenon is seen more and more in the facebook/myspace generation. People consistently compete to be the one with the most friends and use that popularity for their advantage.
If anything, mouchette.org shows that you can not be one-hundrend percent sure of the identity of the person. At the same time it shows that using the internet's power does have it's advantages.
No comments:
Post a Comment