Timo Brendenberg

Timo Brendenberg's work examines the effect the internet has had on economic, political, and social perceptions by collecting found videos on popular streaming channels, primarily YouTube. Although his more recent work such as I-cloud or The Last Worker Standing deals with the issues mentioned above using game engines and found code. Works like Empire, Drive Through, and Ghost Ride deal explicitly with the collective footage found in YouTube and each one makes a statement of how these communities on YouTube have created this odd phenomena of posting the same videos in a global context. Ghost Ride for example, is a contemplation of videos where groups of people or an individual will dance alongside a moving car. He was interested in the video's that included soldiers in Afghanistan posting the same videos. My first impression was that it was comical and that was most likely intent of the people who posted it. But then it's becomes very odd that this specific type of video made it to these soliders who are fighting in a very bloody conflict over seas. This then becomes something of a shared spectacle; it's doesn't have a deeper purpose and it's not something that is sold as a product. But it a video that is recognizable globally, for those with access to the internet. This ties in with Timo's thoughts on the internet and a form of a global community that has created connections through these shared images.