I took this picture at the Nicholas Robinson Gallery of Michael Zansky's exhibit "The Western Lands." The piece seen here consists of a doll headed angel backing a magnified rotating table. On the table one finds a merman king smiting some fat-headed WASP. All the while the magnifying glass conflicts with the glass orb next to the WASP which causes him to look tiny in comparison. This tension caused between magnification and minimization leaves the viewer only one option; to go behind the "curtain" and see for himself.
To me this effect speaks very much to the era of new media. Everyday we are faced with the conflict of apearance vs. reality. One network will show politicians hidden behind a veil of rhetoric and propaganda, while the next is uncovering what ever slanderous facts can be invented. This causes a state of constant unknowing, and forces citizens to look for themselves, resulting in large online communities such as digg and wikipedia.
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