Meggan Gould (Topsham, ME) www.meggangould.netfirms.com

(scroll down for statement)

Meggan Gould, coke+can and mona+lisa, From the series “Go ogle,” 2004-2006, 16 Digital C-prints, 10 x 8 inches each, courtesy of the artist

Meggan Gould, detail of delicate+arch, from the series “Go ogle,” 2004-2006, 16 Digital C-prints, 10 x 8 inches each, courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Through the “Go ogle” series I seek to examine the visual experience of the internet, proposing a means of exploring encounters with the increasingly ubiquitous screen-based landscapes through which we routinely meander.

The images in the “Go ogle” series are composite images, mathematical averages of the first 100 images retrieved from a Google search engine query for a specific word or phrase. Each downloaded image relinquished its size, shape, and the clarity of its individual pixels in its merger with the other results from the query. The results, a visualization of intersections between Boolean logic and the popular imagination, are more often than not a hopeless jumble of unidentifiable pixels—but occasionally a recognizable form does emerge. Truly iconic imagery is elusive, particularly considering the glut of computer graphics through which internet spiders and archivers crawl daily; only a small fraction of searches retain any degree of legibility through the averaging process. Like time-lapse photographs of movement through physical space, the “Go ogle” series explores how movement through virtual landscapes similarly obliterates detail, exploring the aesthetic potential within the motion itself.

- Meggan Gould