Microsoft controls the activities of the artists in advance.

Martin Krenn: Gregory Sholette

One need not take this project too seriously because it is really not interesting in artistic terms, but there is a metaphorical aspect in it that I think is of importance and that I would like to outline. It reminds me of the game ‘hide and seek’. You have to zoom in on the image to find the artists. To attract your attention the artists try to catch your attention. Their art is not challenging the perception of the viewer in a provocative way, as it is common in performance art; their performances are reduced to only one aspect: self-promotion by attracting the attention of the viewer. They try to catch one's eye by being different from other passers-by in the image. Depending on how you navigate through the image some of the artists will be found and others will remain unnoticed in it. The whole project can also be described as a digital Panopticon that controls the activities of the artist in advance, even before they may become visible. Because no matter what the artists are doing, they are caught in this image; an image, that is owned as well as created by a global corporation. Interestingly in opposition to the classical institutional building in this Panopticon there is not only one watchman who observes the workers in the factory or the prisoners in their cells. Everyone who visits the website can take his place.