Two teams have to duke it out and discover the hidden underbelly of the Internet. Search Engine Friendly Feud is an update to the famous game show Family Feud. In Family Feud, the long-time classic, contestants are asked to guess survey question responses from 100 people. In Search Engine Friendly Feud, two teams of contestants compete to guess themes gathered though 38 billion searches from 200 search engines worldwide. See this audience warmup video for more details.

I’m Sorry, explores originality in the context of appropriation and plagiarism. The text of the book consists of excerpts from public apologies for plagiarism composed in hand set type. Each page includes errors inherent to the hand set type process, such as damaged type, upside-down and backwards letters. The apology is re-printed on each page until all technical errors have been corrected. The repeated texts play with the idea of exposure to other’s ideas and the slippery slope between influence, appropriation, and outright “theft.”

The book was letterpress printed at The Center for Book Arts. Edition of 35.

The book includes a wheel chart, Originality Compass, which abridges the cases to the essential judgments about originality. The court decisions presented in the compact scale of the disk provide a birds-eye view into the subjectivity of the arguments that vary on a case-by-case basis. In contrast to this, the wheel chart as a measuring device suggests that definitive answers are being provided.

Originality: Cases and Materials, the accompanying book, presents the case research for the Originality Compass wheel chart. The book consists of copies of the source material court cases with underlining and margin notes that highlight aesthetic contemplations in the court.

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Technical Data:
Google search query: “the most boring place in the world”
Posts collected from January 10 – May 1, 2009
55 entries, 52 unique locations to date

“Home of Tycoons,” titled after a condominium complex in China,
investigates real estate marketing in Beijing during 2004 – only
moments before the old city would be completely demolished and
replaced by high-rises, stadiums and suburban gated communities.
Through photo documentation and sampling of poorly translated Chinese
to English sales materials, “Tycoons” explores the fantastical side of
home ownership in China.

An example, the brochure for Beijing’s Long Island community declares
– “This isn’t an age that dare not speak up wealth, this is an age
that needs to use wealth to sublime one’s life.”

Other residences studied include: MoMA, SOHO and The Home of Tycoons.
10×8 inches (25×20 cm) 104 pages

Buy online
View pdf (contains watermark)

Protect Yourself… is a compilation of online marketing materials from armored car manufacturers. In addition to undercover ballistic tests, the video collages industry interviews, auto shows and marketing propaganda in a form that transforms a corporate trade video into an action-packed thriller (minus Chuck Norris). The video is punctuated by humorous vignettes of evasive industry reps obsessed with corporate secrecy. This stands in stark contrast to the copious online materials showcasing vehicular violence.

Viktor Yanukovych Collapses after Collision with an Egg, 2009
Zoetrope
Linen paper, laser cut, digital print, masonite, found lamp base, motor
15” x 15” x 20”

Kyiv (1708/2008), 2009
Chromira print
30” x 35”