Michael Takeo Magruder | USA |
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| Michael Takeo Magruder\'s <event>, in which headline news
articles have been parsed from http://news.bbc.co.uk/ between December
29 and February 1, is concerned with the individual\'s relationship
with finite moments in recent history. As with his earlier works,
Magruder grapples with media saturation and its subsequent devaluation
of information; copyright-who actually owns the information, the event
that triggered it, the history it becomes?; is it the \'truth\'? <event>
re-presents 31 news items, compelling the user to \"reflect upon
the minute isolated occurrences of which history in an empirical sense
is composed.\" Magruder does this by extracting, slowing down,
and meticulously crafting samples of audio, image, text, and video
information. Rather than disguise or remove distortions, Magruder
deliberately incorporates the artifacts of data compression into the
piece. Events that usually stream towards us in a rapid, undifferentiated
flow become moments of quiet contemplation that can be viewed and
re-viewed in one\'s own time. The user can apply an array of colored
filters, like gels used on theater sets-one can, in fact, choose to
view events \"through rose-tinted glasses.\" Depending on
the color, the moving image either partially obscures or reveals the
\'truth\', i.e. word. One can choose to literally tone down the rhetoric,
or inflame the masses. One filter filters out the others. Multicolored,
Magruder\'s default, represents ambiguity, multiple viewpoints, the
many. With the motion slowed, and much of the detail removed from
the images, one can begin to see what news actually \'looks\' like.
We see the outlines and the spaces in-between. We study the news as
we would study a painting. Magruder\'s <event> is his most powerful
and beautiful yet.
<event> is a 2003 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Turbulence.org Press release)
Fallujah, Iraq, 31/03/2004 - According to witnesses and U.S. officials, four American \'civilians\' were ambushed and shot or beaten to death by Iraqi insurgents. Townspeople mutilated the bodies of the men, dragged them through the streets, lynched them from a bridge, and burned them while crowds danced and cheered... notes: - The desecration of the victims\' bodies was filmed in its entirety by an Associated Press camera crew. - There was no intervention by collation forces during the attack or the subsequent mutilations. - The coverage of the event was highly censored on all international media networks. - The \'civilian\' causalities were mercenaries employed by Blackwater Security Consulting, of Moyock, N.C. context: As a consequence of technological advances, the Media now generates a \'real-time\' history in which the infinitesimal lag between subject acquisition, journalistic structuring and public broadcast engenders a reflexive loop susceptible to subversive alteration. Considering the interpretive spectrum between ethical filtering of content and manipulative remixing of data, we must question the validity of the \'factual\' information which permeates our everyday and consider the implications of its instantaneous dissemination. Does this new Media provide a means to accurately reflect upon the minute isolated events of which history, in an empirical sense, is composed? Given this sociological framework, the work is not intended as
a discourse on the axiom of \'the evil nature of war\'. It is merely
a consideration of an event we have (or have not) witnessed, and
a reflection on the iconic nature of conflict in this new millennium. Michael Takeo Magruder is an American artist based in the UK who works within the fields of New and Interactive Media. He received his formal education at the University of Virginia, USA, graduating with distinction in Biological Sciences. For the past eight years his artistic practice has reflected upon society\'s data-driven and information-saturated existence through the examination of international news communications. By recombining the notions of art and media, he has analysed interconnections between the individual and the pervasive media network; a questioning of product vs. process, knowledge vs. stimulation, fact vs. perspective. His artistic production has been exhibited worldwide and encompasses
an eclectic mix of forms, ranging from futuristic stained-glass
windows, digital lightscreens and modular light-sculptures to architectural
manipulations, ephemeral video projections and interactive network
installations. His current explorations and research embrace 3D
stereoscopic projection, immersive multi-sensory environments and
interactive non-linear narratives for network/gallery settings.
His work in these fields is presently supported by Turbulence.org,
3D Visualisation Group: University of Warwick and Arts Council England.
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