Brad Borevitz on Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:38:15 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime-ann> [ann] state of the union |
. PROJECT: State of the Union URL: <http://stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net> STATE OF THE UNION WEBSITE EXPLORES THE DECLINE OF POLITICAL LANGUAGE 1790-2007 A Software Art Project by Brad Borevitz The launch of Brad Borevitz's State of the Union website anticipates the 2007 State of the Union address scheduled to be delivered to Congress and the American people by George W. Bush on January 23rd. Lamenting the triumph of iconicity over rhetoricity, Borevitz describes the gradual changes in political speech from argument to brand. The project asks us to consider if evidence for this assertion exists in the language of the State of the Union address which stands as a controlled sample of political speech over the course of U.S. history. State of the Union provides searchable access to the corpus of all the State of the Union addresses from 1790 to 2007. Using visualization software, the site allows a user to explore how specific words gain and lose prominence over time, and to link to information on the historical context for their use. State of the Union focuses on the relationship between individual addresses as compared to the entire collection of addresses, highlighting what is different about the selected document. From this information, users are invited to try and understand the connection between politics and languagebetween the state we are in, and the language which names it and calls it into being. Since the project's initial release in May of 2006 it has logged over 50,000 visits. State of the Union has been selected for inclusion in Rhizome's ArtBase, and mentioned on numerous of websites and blogs from The Liberal Progressive to The National Review. Brad Borevitz is an artist whose work focuses on language, politics and software. He has produced websites, videos, software applications, and robots, all of which have at their core a deep commitment to understanding the political and cultural implications of computer technology. He is currently a participant in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program. He holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California San Diego. The State of the Union website can be visited at <http://stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net>. _______________________________________________ nettime-ann mailing list nettime-ann@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-ann