People Portraits
Murmur Study by Christopher Baker
Murmur Study is an installation that examines the rise of micro-messaging technologies such as Twitter and Facebook’s status update. One might describe these messages as a kind of digital small talk. But unlike water-cooler conversations, these fleeting thoughts are accumulated, archived and digitally-indexed by corporations. While the future of these archives remains to be seen, the sheer volume of publicly accessible personal — often emotional — expression should give us pause.
This installation consists of 30 thermal printers that continuously monitor Twitter for new messages containing variations on common emotional utterances. Messages containing hundreds of variations on words such as argh, meh, grrrr, oooo, ewww, and hmph, are printed as an endless waterfall of text accumulating in tangled piles below.
Murmur study was created in collaboration with Márton András Juhász and the Kitchen Budapest.
Murmur Study is a commission of Northern Lights’ Art(ists) On the VergeJerome Foundation. Additional support provided by the McKnight Foundation, the Weisman Art Museum, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Christopher Baker | website
Event Reports
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