project title
Reverse Shoplifting
project description
RELAPSED.NET is an ongoing new media project investigating the potential of the website as fine arts object. RELAPSED.NET looks to add to the ongoing discourse in the art world to develop successful techniques for the display of new media work within the traditional gallery setting. But, it is new medias ability to exist outside of the gallery that really motivates me. Art in the age of digital reproduction challenges the definition of fine art as an individual, physically tangible original. Digital art is the opposite of the precious, irreplaceable object. A digital file can be replicated, modified, and distributed with ease.
For Psy.Geo.Conflux I am altering the packaging of canned goods and "Reverse Shoplifting" the altered objects back into stores. The new designs for the cans will be digital photographic collages using images from RELAPSED.NET. The works will act as a guerrilla ad campaign for the site as well an art object that people can purchase for the price of the original unaltered product (the bar code will be left intact in the new designs.) I have priced most of the products I will be altering at approx. $ 0.25 to $ 0.50. I plan on placing 20-25 cans on the shelves of 5-7 grocery stores in different neighborhoods throughout New York City. I will print and distribute maps to the specific stores. The map will also be available at my website, WWW.RELAPSED.NET. I may also have a place on the site where people can post their anecdotes about trying to buy the works.
name
RELAPSED.NET {Ryan Watkins-Hughes}
location
Brooklyn, New York
profile
Born in Atlanta, GA in 1979, Ryan Watkins-Hughes spent a majority of the past two years traveling throughout the United States and Europe. Ryan currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
links
www.relapsed.net
