Mary Corey March

Mixed Media Participatory Installation: collage of online ads and profiles of participants, digital manipulation, digital print on clear film, LEDS, custom light box. 33" x 51" x 2.5". (4/2015)

Companies target online ads at us based on their surveillance of what we buy, look at and even write online. Together these ads can create a unique portrait of an individual. Some things are specific to our online activity, while other things indicate consumer culture’s “profile” of us based on gender, age, assumed sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. These can be an intimate and revealing look at the individual, or a warping of that individual. They also offer a second portrait of the cultural biases and consumer pressures imposed on that individual.

These portraits are of participants who volunteered their silhouette and a day of every ad on their computer to the artist (or multiple days if one day didn’t supply enough to fill the space).