Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Another internet performance piece

At this website: http://svoichuzoi.org/pages/intro_en.html viewers can vote for whether the Russian artist Oleg Mavromati should receive a painful electric shock. Each time 100 people vote in favor, he gets shocked. This is interesting, because 100 is a small enough number that an individual can have a clear effect on the outcome, but at the same time, is large enough that they can comfortably shift the blame to the other 99 people if they vote in favor but are then disturbed by seeing the shock.

I have alot of respect for the artist for his committment to do this. Techology is rapidly replacing face to face communication, and when alone with technology, people can say and do things to people that they never would have the courage to do in person. Often people don't realize what harm they are causing until it's too late (consider the recent internet related suicides of teenagers). This performance forces people to become aquainted with their true colors in a rapid and direct manner, allowing them to see a clear chain of cause and effect, which at least briefly, can cause a segment of the population to reevaluate their values.

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