Watching Paint Dry
The bookwork, YouTube Search: Windows 95-98 Maze Screensaver, is a collection of the results from a YouTube search using the search words “Windows 95-98 Maze Screensaver”. The work consolidates all of the digital information that results in a search on YouTube, including all of the videos and their respective number of views and commentaries as of September 29th, 2013. This bookwork serves as a user generated record of the screensaver in all its incarnations and variations, from screen-captured recordings of the original, to psychedelic versions, to programmed games that turn the walls of the screensaver into a battle ground with rogue aliens and first person shooters. It also serves as a record of the reception the results have generated, as comments on the videos range from benign acknowledgment, to repulsion, nostalgia, wonderment and complete fascination. In this way YouTube Search: Windows 95-98 Maze Screensaver both quantitatively and qualitatively affirms the presence of the maze screensaver, its relevance on the Internet, and its impact on viewers. The sheer size of the book and the number of pages makes physical the collective time that is put into voluntarily watching videos and voluntarily commenting on something as ubiquitous and trivial as a screensaver. In this way the work highlights the notion of leisure, time, entertainment and ultimately the popularity of the screen or mediated interfaces, and in doing so provides a glimpse into the excesses and ironies of the Internet and digital culture.
