Co-Modify Highlights So Far, by Joanie San Chirico

Sunday May 3 started off with an amazing assortment of posts/tweets from our performers reaching across multiple social media platforms. We're looking forward to seeing what the rest of the week brings. Many of the performers are using Twitter, but a number are using Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and one very enterprising participant is using OKCupid.


Quick Highlights
These are only a few of the highlights I've seen from social media land. There's a ton of great things going on during this performance, and this just a small selection that caught my eye. Other members of the Steering Committee will be blogging about highlights this week as well. Remember that you can check out the @Platea Twitter favorites and the @Platea Flickr group for more notes from the performance.

Used with permission by bjones

Barry Jones is reporting on his love affair with Starbucks on Facebook, wired on caffeine. Some of the comments to his posts from people unaware of his performance include:

"I think we need to organize an intervention"
“Man, can I work out a deal like this with Absolute Vodka somehow?”

Both caffeine and sugar have affected New Curator’s posts: “gggoooiiinnngggtttooottthhheeessshhhooopppfffooorrrmmmooorrreeerrreeedddbbbuuulll
ssseeeyyyooouuuiiinnnaaammmiiinnnuuuttteeeweeeeeeeeeee” obviously after drinking too much Red Bull.

What happens when every happening has to be visually documented to have happened? What happens to art and to the view when every view is a work of art?

Jonny Gray, sponsored by Adobe, is taking his posts a step further, making the words themselves into art, as subtext to the performance. One reads, in part:

So Many Layers, So Many Ways to Blend

These screens, these windows, these blended layers participate in the critical aesthetic of collage. Images, repurposed and recombined creating new messages, but always carrying the trace of their original meaning. The edges sticky and torn, nothing so clean -- the join its own site of suture, of violence, of creation. And here, Photoshop provides an array of tools to do so digitally, virtually -- with light and pixels, rendered and rasterized.

In this semiotic jungle there are just so many layers and so many ways to blend.

Joelle Held extolled the many products that Microsoft makes, or doesn’t make, in posts such as: “Microsoft laundry detergent leaves my clothes feeling soft and cuddly!”

Nina is using Tumblr to tell her story in images. She's sponsored by Twitter and her photos reference birds/spring/nature in some way. You can see her entire performance by clicking on this link.

lingerfickin

One of the most imaginative participants is Keith Molloy, sponsored by KFC. He's invented an entire persona (or is this the real Keith?) based on his sponsor at OKCupid. Perhaps he's looking for a dinner date? His profile can be seen here.

Interactive Dialog Develops
The performers have begun to meld their sponsors in conversations with each other. “a perfect combo: drinking STARBUCKS while surfing FACEBOOK” by El Celso speaking to Barry Jones. Others have morphed into co-operative performances.

I am in love with the Aussie line of hair products.

From Jim Litzinger on Flickr and Facebook: "with my AUSSIE in hand, helmet head is never an issue for me!" and an observer replied "This was very hard to watch, but I'm glad that you are bringing this horrible problem to light...we must come together to fight against this so no one will ever have to experience it again! I was once afflicted, but I have moved on and have never looked back!" Please note his matching purple eyes, with tags like hair, bald, purple, spray, happy and more.

There are sponsors who are loved by the participants, and then there are those with love/hate relationships such as Adobe and Microsoft. There are photos, note posts, sponsored links, subliminal messages, videos, music, and so on. There have been some amazing performances so far, and others are building on past posts to grow into entire exhibits of their own using cross-pollination from other participants. I'm really excited to see that the artists are meshing their "acts" into group performances.

What's caught your eye so far? This is such a small snippet of the performance, so feel free to leave your comments here (and don't forget your sponsors!). And if there is something that interests you that you would like to see on a blog post, DM @Platea on Twitter, or email platea.stweets@gmail.com. Stay tuned to this blog for more highlights from our Steering Committee!