Sicilian Culture: The News & Views: John Baldessari Goes Digital

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John Baldessari Goes Digital
The Los Angeles Times

Monday, June 11, 2001 - - It's a still life--that is, until you move it.
That's the unusual nature of L.A. artist John Baldessari's first digital online project: "Still Life: Choosing and Arranging," inaugurating the Museum of Contemporary Art's new digital gallery, which launches today at http://www.moca.org.
The work, commissioned by MOCA as the first in a series of online artists' projects, is an interactive experiment that gives visitors to the museum's Web site the chance to co-create a work of contemporary art with Baldessari.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to select objects from the lower of two shelves on your computer screen and arrange them on the upper shelf. Baldessari, a prominent figure in the Conceptual art movement, is noted for his use of photography, text and "found images."
The images on the bottom shelf represent "a selection of everyday objects from Baldessari's studio," according to MOCA's press office. They include a can of chicken broth and a chicken leg; a tube of toothpaste; a padlock; a glass of water containing a leaf; a glass swan; a pink pig (or maybe a dog, hard to say); and what appears to be a small extraterrestrial--suggesting that "everyday" may be somewhat different in Baldessari's studio than in the average home.
Over the next several months, new objects will appear, extending the shelf life of the museum project.
John Baldessari Goes Digital
www.latimes.com/print/calendar/20010611/t000048573.html

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