And/Or Gallery Press Release #22
And/Or Show #22: YTMND
Dates: March 7th - May 2nd
Opening Reception: March 7th, 6pm - 9pm
with screening of whatever is on channel 4 (the FOX network) in the backyard.
YTMND, an acronym for "You're The Man Now Dog",
is the name of an Internet website and its community where users create
very simple one-page websites that typically consist of a single tiled image or animation,
a sound loop, and optional few lines of large 3D text. In most cases, the source of the images,
sound, and text is popular movies, television, music, news, and Internet memes.
This exhibition will present a selection of these websites in the gallery.
The YTMND concept originated from a placeholder website that was made for
the Internet domain www.yourethemannowdog.com. Internet domain names are frequently
purchased on speculation because the buyer thinks the domain name might eventually be useful
to others or for personal use. In some cases it is even possible
to lose ownership of a domain name if it is not used, and so a placeholder website
is necessary until a better use is found for the domain.
The new owner of "yourethemannowdog.com"
created a placeholder site that referenced its origin:
a scene in the movie Finding Forrester
where Sean Connery speaks the
line: "you're the man now, dog!" The placeholder site included a tiled image of Sean Connery from
the movie, a sound loop of him speaking the famous line, and text echoing the dialogue.
Using the barest and most simplistic methods of (HTML) web design, the site's banal and
hilarious web graphics became a popular Internet joke or curiosity. A meme.
As the site grew in popularity, the owner of the domain, Max Goldberg,
came up with the idea to start a new website called YTMND that
facilitated others in creating similar websites with a tiled image, sound loop, and small
amount of text. This website grew into a large community of users who were
interested in creating and viewing these minimal websites. The pieces in this
show are selected from the work that these users have created.
The users of YTMND are not necessarily artists, but the constraints set by
YTMND essentially force the users to create art. Most of the sites are terrible,
but occasionally something comes out of the process that is truly great or beautiful, and
this is what we sought out for this exhibition.
YTMND has half a million
sites, and sites are currently being created at a rate of 5000 per week.
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