OnTheCusp.org

Myspace as a medium

It started out as a place for musicians to share music and connect with other bands and fans, but over the years Myspace has become a cultural phenomenon. It didn't take long for almost every visual artist with a digital camera to make their own page, and there have been plenty of fakes out there too (my personal favorite is Damien Hirst's duck project). Even museums such as The Walker, The Hammer Museum, PS1 and even iMOCA have a myspace presence.

Myspace recently added video capabilities for filmmakers and artists did not take long to pick up on this as well. Annika Larsson has her own myspace page here. What I hadn't seen was the site being utilized as an artistic medium itself. Concept Trucking has been using myspace as a platform for projects (Finding Jesus on Myspace, Amazon Wish List, etc.) but I have been waiting for the site to be creatively utilized on an individual level. Enter Gulliver likes Surfing.

Gulliver is the fictitious persona of a young Italian artist who is (according to his profile page):

...a shy guy. I spent my days reading about INSECTS and ASTRONOMY. I don't like that going around with other guys and get drunk and accosting other girls and so on. Everytime my dear mother says I'm too handsome and young for spending my life alone in my room. And she says I should begin to find out new friends. So here I am.

Visitors are then invited to make their own interpretation of his profile pic and he "would download all of your little drawings and pick them up on my room walls. Then I'm sure my dear mother would be really pleased." Some of the results are outstanding. I'm not sure if he wants his identity revealed so I won't do it here, but he did say in a recent email in broken, yet effective English, "My project is a "divertisment"..gulliver is a fake guy..it's something like an ironical way to use myspace." He also confirmed my earlier thoughts:

I was thinking to do find out something about myspace-art but there's nothing interesting.. there's only a lot of people who uses myspace to exhibit what they're doing "out" of myspace.. something like drawings or comics or pictures.. but nothing that uses myspace like a art-medium..nothing but me ;)..do you know what I mean?!

If you know of any other projects like this, please let me know. Sites like myspace and youtube will only continue to more become part of the vernacular and I'm fascinated by where it might take us. Below are a few examples taken from Gulliver's site.

Warhol's Gulliver:


















Banksy's Gulliver:

















Hirst's Gulliver: