Artists: Dennis Hwang, Google logos

When I was in high school, I vowed to marry Dennis Hwang, the creator of the google holiday logos. Hwang did not create the ubiquitous google logo that everyone sees on an everyday basis, but he creates the special holiday logos that show up on random days such as Jackson Pollock's birthday, the 50th anniversary of NASA, and the World Cup as well as more 'traditional' holidays such as Christmas, Valentines day, Fathers day, or the Chinese New Year. The first logo Hwang designed for Google was in honor of Bastille day on July 14, 2000, and he is still creating logos (the most recent being Valentine's day) 

The upshot of creating logos for Google that Google is an extremely popular search engine, receiving several hundred million queries a day, so any artwork on the google search main page will receive a lot of attention, and often Google will include a link to a google search of the holiday or birthday of whomever they are honoring in the logo. 

Another sweet thing that the google holiday logos webpage has added is a fan logos page, which means that not only can Hwang contribute logos to the web giant, but anyone can. These won't be displayed on the main page, but it still includes the user-contributions and interactivity that is an aspect of a lot of digital New Media Art. 

Artists: Nobodyhere.com

Nobodyhere.com is an interactive personal site of an anonymous Dutch artist (s/he gives an email of Nobody@nobodyhere.com) with interactive pages that link to one another, and often involve flash games the viewer interacts with to try to figure out the purpose of the site. The topics of the pages are random, about socks, candy hearts, hermit crabs, and gum pieces. Viewers of the page are allowed to comment on pages and interact--commenters are called 'insects', and choose a bug icon avatar to display. The website is available in Dutch, English, and Japanese, which allows a large readership to interact and understand the website. 

I really enjoy sites in which I can personally interact with such as this one, even if they seem purposeless--one "insect" commented that the website is a "great place to unwind". When I created my journey project, I was specifically inspired by this website, which is why I included sounds and as much interactivity in my site, as well as a convolution of links in the page--one image may link to several pages, a couple of them previous in the chain of links, so the viewer spends a lot of time exploring the site. I was also excited to see that the Netherlands Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture helped fund this website--it's reassuring to see sites as these officially recognized as art. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/arts/design/15cott.html

"At the same time, if the example of past crises holds true, artists can also take over the factory, make the art industry their own. Collectively and individually they can customize the machinery, alter the modes of distribution, adjust the rate of production to allow for organic growth, for shifts in purpose and direction. They can daydream and concentrate. They can make nothing for a while, or make something and make it wrong, and fail in peace, and start again."

So even though I'll be a poor artist, this is the best time to be an artist because I'll have the most control over my ideas!!

Artists: Yugo Nakamura, Industrious Clock

Yugo Nakamura's Industrious Clock is a website in which the year, month, date, and time are written out numerically over and over again by the image, where a pencil writes each number, then erases it to write the next one. The seconds go extremely fast, while you have to sit and wait to watch the other digits change. The piece is constantly in flux-every user gets a different experience depending on when he/she visits, how long he/she stays, and if, like me, the viewer constantly refreshes to watch the hand write all the digits at once. 

I like this piece because I've seen it before on the internet, it has become almost viral in the way it is spread, so that most people who spend considerable time on the internet have been linked to the industrious clock. It also reminds me of the Human Clock, where users can contribute images to a dynamic, everchanging clock on the page.