Alan Bigelow
US media artist
writes digital stories for the web. These stories are created in Flash and use images, text, audio, video, and other components.
WORKS
1.
Work title: “Deep Philosophical Questions”
Year of production: 2008
Used technology: Flash
Work description:
Comic strips and philosophy are combined in this digital fiction to
answer six important questions that slip between the cracks of serious
philosophy, into a place where logic and pedantry have no play.
This work uses images, video, and audio files acquired online, and
modified by the artist. A credits page is included on the site.
2.
Work title: “Love Is…”
Year of production: 2008
Used technology: Flash
Work description:
“Love Is…” is an attempt at a definition, and as with all
definitions that try to explain what love is, precision is not
possible, and perhaps not even desirable. This piece moves toward a
definition of love in three stages: first through a standard, accepted
lexicon; then via a series of individual expressions of love; and
finally as defined within randomly selected statements about love
provided by readers.
The work is created in Flash and, at the end of the piece, offers
viewers the opportunity to write their own definitions of love into
the site. These definitions are saved in a database so the next
visitor can view them as they are randomly displayed. “Love Is…”
takes approximately five minutes to view. No special downloads or
plugins are required.
This work uses videos and audio files acquired online, and modified by
the artist. A credits page is included on the site.
3.
Title of Work: “What They Said…”
Year of Production: 2008
Duration: 5 minutes
Medium: Net Art/Flash work
Synopsis:
“What They Said” (2008) is an online work (also viewable offline)
which is a commentary on mass media and its use of authoritarian
messages, both outright and subliminal, to influence culture and
political will. The work is created in Flash, and uses a synthesized
combination of text, images, and audio; its interface is a hybrid of
television and radio visual elements intended to enhance the user
experience and require their participation in the viewing of the work.
“What They Said” is meant not just as a commentary on mass media, and
how it is used, both intentionally and by media programmers’ blind
acquiescence to political paradigms, to distort meaning and
manipulate citizens worldwide. It also suggests our own culpability,
as the ones who turn on the media devices and listen to the messages.
We bear some responsibility for the perpetuation of these messages,
and we are the ones, if we have the will, to turn them off.
This work uses images, video, and audio files acquired online, and
modified by the artist. A credits page is included in the work.
Display needs: a good computer (if Mac, a G4 or better), a monitor, a
mouse and, if required by the environment, a pair of headphones.