Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise – Christopher Baker

There is still a long road ahead for the democratic promise of digital revolution and, like any other landmark change, it still has some dead zones. Christopher Baker’s videoinstallation, composed by more than 5,000 videos taken from online platforms such as YouTube or Facebook, reflects on this topic. All the videos are put together on the same surface, and each clip presents a user who addresses a hypothetical and virtual audience in order to tell his/her story or to promote it. It’s the so-called many-to-many communication, which differs from traditional mass media for its participative aspect and for being accessible to everyone. In this flux of information, however, the capacity of distinguish the significant traces from the bad ones could get lost, with the risk of reducing everything to a simple ground noise. The artist proposes a dual reflection by recording the potentiality of new media, on one side, and by keeping a critical eye on it, something that could lead to a bigger understanding the way we live and on how we can go back to become active subjects.

Bianca Cavuti

Christopher Baker, Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise, 2008, (allestimento presso CCC Strozzina, Identità Virtuali, Firenze, 2011)

©Christopher Baker 2008, Courtesy CCC Strozzina.