|
download
(mac os)
|
In 1994, the McDonald's Corporation, taking advantage of United
Kingdom libel laws which tend to favor the plaintiff, sued several
eco-activists for libel. That case, dubbed the McLibel case, inspired
Life is Bait.
Life is Bait is an attempt to capture the consumer culture
environment, in which we are bombarded from all sides with temptations
and lures to buy something. Often, this "bait " is cast in terms
that make the purchase appear beneficial to an individual's life,
and, furthermore, make the producer of the product out as deeply
concerned for the individual's well-being. This concern is hypocritical
and short-lived, lasting only long enough to extract money and,
in the end, resulting in events that are actually detrimental to
the health of the individual, the culture and the ecology.
We use the "bait box", or "collage of temptation" as the central
metaphor of all this consumer bait floating about. In the same way
the consumer is tempted to buy and buy, we wanted to tempt the user
to fully explore the issues we had to present. Beside the bait box,
Life is Bait consists of three other, smaller windows. Initially,
the smaller windows, labeled "McDonald's", "McLibel Two", and "Neutral",
are empty. The large window, labeled "Bait", has a multitude of
visual elements moving around inside of it. When the user clicks
on any of these elements, he gets a proxy of it attached to his
cursor. If he then drags-and-drops it into one of the smaller window,
a text-field appears in the smaller window. Dragging the same object
into all three different windows produces three different texts,
each of which represent the views expressed by that particular party
to the action.
Life is Bait was commisioned by the Engliash Arts Council
|
