A photo-mosaic is usually a collection of small rectangular images that when placed together form a new composition through their collective content. In the early 1990's they were a technological spectacle. However as the decade passed the mosaic effect began to be mass produced on a wide variety of consumer items (these included travel souvenirs, posters and tshirts) now the photo-mosaic embodies a new cultural significance. What was once a statement of technological innovation and a sign of a progressive digital age transformed into disposable items which stand as a testament to outdated technology. Taking this into consideration I have adopted the photo mosaic as a method of satire to exploit current malfunctions in internet ideology
In the 1960's Douglas Engelbart argued that computers were not simply efficiency and productivity tools but could actually be used to 'augment intellect' and by combining human intelligence with a computers capability this could pave the way for a new way of life in a 'integrated domain'. Post 2004 in the age of Web 2.0, one of the major technological innovations has been tagging content. This meta-data makes content more available by browsing or through search queries and all tags are added by the user themselves and therefore there is no editing process. Whilst there is room for human error there will always be mistakes.
The Medium Is The Mess (a reference to Marshall Mcluhans publication 'The Medium is the Massage') acknowledges these mistakes. When searching for Marshall Mcluhan on Google image search, I noticed that many of the images available where not of the man himself although the original tag stated that it was. These incorrect tags undermine the notion of any collective intelligence through the internet and instead of being a progressive medium, they demonstrate that it still has a long way to go.
The materialisation of these concerns exist as a series of photographic prints. I have entered the names of different cultural figures onto google image search and I have downloaded the first 50 results that have appeared. These results are then entered into photo-mosaic software and they collectively reconstitute one random image collected from the search results. Two large prints of misrepresentation of Marshall Mcluhan are placed with my degree show, whilst a collection of ten other cultural figures are presented into book form.
