then and now
Everyone on Google also included a performance at the opening of the “Living Archives” show at SFAI, where the installation was up for a week and a half. My performance was based on Huebler’s practice at his own openings. See the full outcome here.
Douglas Huebler, 1971:
At various art events, visitors who had agreed to the conditions for participating in this project randomly selected one of eighty cards on which were printed cliches such as ‘AT LEAST ONE PERSON WHO IS BEAUTIFUL BUT DUMB’ (Included in this stack of cards were ‘characterizations’ fabricated by the artist especially for this work.)
By being forbidden to read the card until after being photographed with it, each participant posed with the full knowledge that ‘chance’ would associate his, or her, face with a characterization whose truth could be gratuitously flattering or outrageously insulting.
The subject of each ‘portrait’ produced by this activity had agreed that, whatever the result, it was to become a permanent document of the ‘everyone alive’ project. Anyone who found the instantly produced Polaroid print completely unacceptable was allowed to use a ‘Magic Marker’ to ‘de-face’ it; virtually no one did so.
Jenny Odell (me), 2009:
At the opening of the “Living Archives” exhibit at the SFAI Swell Gallery, visitors who had agreed to the conditions for participating in this project had their (first or full) name Googled by the artist on a laptop at a small table (for example, “Jenny Odell is”, searched in quotes). The participants where able to select an association (“Jenny Odell is a surgical assistant in Buffalo, New York”); the artist wrote this association on a piece of paper that the participant held in a photo taken by the laptop on which they were Googled.
By agreeing to be Googled, each participant posed with the full knowledge that ‘Google’ would associate his, or her, name and face with a characterization whose truth could be gratuitously flattering or outrageously insulting.
The subject of each ‘portrait’ produced by this activity had agreed that, whatever the result, it was to be re-published to the Internet on this ‘Everyone on Google’ Tumblr. Participants were allowed to keep their signs; virtually everyone did so.
one person who was a fashion designer at $49629 a year
