Jody Zellen: Visual Chaos
Artist(s):
Title:
- Visual Chaos
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2001
Medium:
- Web Site
Category:
Keywords:
Artist Statement:
“Visual Chaos” is a short Web work that explores the idea of chaos on the Web. In “Visual Chaos” I created a number of moving windows, as well as windows that appeared in specific places on the screen. I wanted there to be a screen filled with little windows, all doing their own thing. I also used a clickable list to create a poem. Each word is a link that opens a new window. You can read the poem a number of ways. Contained within “Visual Chaos” are a number of flash movies that use historical images of Los Angeles as source material, adding current images and texts as animations to explore the relationship between the past and the present, as well as the ancient, the modern, and the future city.
“Visual Chaos” uses the space of the Web as a sculptural space, allowing viewers to interact with animated graphics to delve deeper and deeper into an imaginary city. The images are culled from various print media sources. The texts are either found passages from urban theory or specifically written poetic musings on the city. The site explores ideas relating to an abstracted idea of the city. The images depict shadows and bodies. It explores the ideas of being swallowed by the city. In “Visual Chaos” I explore grids as a metaphor for the many different paths one can journey down in the modern metropolis. One of the things I am interested in is to counter the use of the Web solely as a source of information.
