PORTFOLIO

GOGBOT 2012 Internet Memes

GOGBOT 2012 focused on memes—cultural genes that spread throughout our digital culture. In today's society, the internet is by far the most dominant platform for cultural expression and the exchange of information. Through social media such as Twitter, Hyves, and Facebook, videos, images, news items, and personal events are constantly being shared with friends and strangers alike. An idea, trend, or behavior that spreads online from person to person—often via social media—is known as a "meme." Memes are therefore defined as new cultural genes: they propagate themselves, mutate, and respond to their environment.

Together with 100%FAT we developed three interactive installations:

Do Not Enter - An Imitation Of Society
Concept: nonon - creative studio, Heinze Havinga, Kees de Groot, Ralph van Barneveld
Hardware: 100%FAT, PLANETART, Ralph van Barneveld
Software: Ralph van Barneveld

This installation consisted of about twenty screens displaying hundreds of memes, ranging from the extremely positive to the extremely negative. The screens were immediately visible upon entering, but control over the content lay with the audience itself. Tucked away in an inconspicuous spot high up in the church was a control center, equipped with a physical console that allowed for the manipulation of the memes—and, by extension, the mood of the audience. From this hidden vantage point, the "manipulators" could monitor the rest of the audience via security cameras to see whether their emotional manipulation was successful.

Body Control Healer
Concept: nonon - creative studio
Hardware: 100%FAT, PLANETART
Software: Ruben Kooijman, 100%FAT

The Body Control Healer installation is a parody of a futuristic machine designed to take over the entire process of consuming visual data. As a member of the audience, you take a seat in the chair; each time you blink, a new meme appears on screen. To capture your physical response, a sensor monitors your heart rate, displaying it both on a screen attached to the chair and via a projection on the ceiling of the church. Furthermore, your heartbeat triggers an audio sample of a thumping heart—at a very low frequency—played through a large subwoofer positioned behind the chair. In this way, you—the user—share one of the most intimate aspects of your body, your heartbeat, with everyone else present.

Body Control Healer is a reflection on our constant reliance on machines and equipment in our daily lives—the oppressive sensation that can arise from being under the perpetual control of machinery, devices, and the internet. This installation may leave you feeling as though you are under the sway of external influences—not just physically, but mentally as well—forces whose existence remains unknown to us and which we do not understand at all. It depicts a human being, caught in a 24/7 cycle of consumption, who has lost control over their own body and mind.

Random Dead Guys
Concept: nonon - creative studio
Hardware: 100%FAT, PLANETART
Software: Ruben Kooijman, Bleep-o-Matic (Simon Pfaff)

As a reaction to what we perceive as a highly disrespectful way in which politicians treat human life when deploying military force for the sake of economic interests, we created our most disrespectful work to date.

At the time, the 'Bad Luck Brian' meme was quite popular and even had its own Twitter feed. The essence of the 'Bad Luck Brian' meme lies in the description of embarrassing or tragic events, framed as the character's personal misfortune.
Around the same time, we came across a Twitter account that posted information about American soldiers killed in action—nearly in real-time—including photographs, personal details, and often even the location and circumstances of their deaths. This stands in stark contrast to the 'Bad Luck Brian' meme: these soldiers did not perish due to their own actions, but were placed in those situations by others.

Using an online tool developed by Ruben Kooijman, these two Twitter feeds were randomly combined to create unique pairings of images and text. This randomized content was then imported in real-time into a new application—developed by Bleep-o-Matic—which layered the data over GoPro footage from war zones. Through the use of a Kinect sensor, the visuals and audio were digitally distorted based on the viewer's movement.

We were able to obtain the footage used via YouTube; it covered a period ranging from the Iraq War to firefights in contemporary conflicts (much of this footage can still be found today). The footage provided a dynamic video background—as well as the soundtrack for the installation—and anchored the entire work in reality.