Internet is a place, they say, where the human being can exchange information in a free manner; a sort of super digital library thanks to which men and women from all over the world can absorb knowledge that, before, were tragically linked to material resources from difficult transport and storage. It is a beautiful purpose. My day to day online is to view ads; some mention them here, but others enjoy them privately. Much has been written on this subject; assumes that the information highway exists to carry the knowledge of a point of the world to another at high speed, but sometimes gives the feeling that the important thing are the posters that are on the sides.
The Swedish artist Jonas Lund identifies all these dangers and transforms it into a literal highway where our mouse avoid colliding with internet companies (Amazon, Google, Twitter, Facebook) to avoid being punished for ads that make it difficult to view in this dismal race by cyberspace.
The Internet Express (I don’t know if this is the name of the piece, the URL is theinternet.express) is a very powerful little game. Very intelligently faces an environment that should be readable, as it is a virtual circuit in which a player must dodge obstacles, with a series of annoyances that make it impassable; the highway by which our cursor moves just buried by advertising, an exponential growth (how many more ads on display there, easier is bumping into another icon and open a new banner) which can stop closing popups, though, have we not come to internet to something else?
It is an acid work that explores the effect of advertising on the online experience in a very neutral manner. These ads simply soiled the information highway; not to speak their algorithms or cookies nor of the ethical considerations of certain types of advertising on the internet, but that simply presents a clear picture of how it affects the transit and the readability of these digital roads by which knowledge moves. What knowledge? Apparently, none: Lund internet only is, ultimately, a minefield. You never get anywhere; Amazon, Google or Twitter (or the own Lund, if it is real ads that jump to report him benefits) that you shocks you need to justify their existence.
Other works of Lund questioned the way that internet affect our life experience. Fair Warning, for example, is a piece that explores and puts to the test the eternal face to which forces us internet: the Simpsons South Park, Warhol versus Hirst, open versus closed borders versus Fox News vs. CNN. Playing with binary decisions and common tests and quizzes, revitalized by Buzzfeed and places similar, Lund challenges the contemporary need to have an answer for everything; categorize, classify and collect data, behavior of machine which is confused with ours, now that we all have other cerebros-maquina at work, in the lounge or in your pocket.
The Internet Express you can play from the browser, using WASD on a keyboard or by tilting the phone sideways to turn and avoid those corporate demons.
