Cultures: From the Annotated Self
by Sammy Cucher

These images are from "The Annotated Self," a project that includes three separate photographic series dealing with issues of consciousness, psychological identity and memory. The source for the images in the "Cultures" series are photographs of doodles drawn on the margins of notebooks, day planners, post-its and scattered notepads. Drawn mostly while on the phone and without any artistic intention, they constitute a sort of automatic writing. The doodles are distilled from an unconscious creative urge which, as I see it, is linked to the basic biological process that enables the evolution of life. -Sammy Cucher

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An interactive computer artwork that explores the construction of meaning through the language of the Western news representation of the Bosnian conflict. With the assistance of the mouse, viewers explore the surface of a moving hunting photograph to scan a range of topics on Bosnia. They can choose 30 categories to examine news quotes set against the photograph. Different points of view are identified through color coding: the Bosnian Muslims, the Serbs and outside news commentaries. The viewer's experience of information search through this computer program interface is designed to reveal the traces of vision technologies' origins in military and medical applications - a particular kind of seeing that can be described as "search and destroy" or "hold still while I examine." By situating the Bosnian conflict into the familiar game format, real world content is introduced into a form generally not known for its criticality. This allows for a creative exploration of alternative ways in which information can be disseminated and retrieved from databases.

-----Press Release Sept. 1994 -

[the clearing] is an interactive computer artwork that explores the construction of cultural meaning through the language of the technologicallly mediated Western news' representation of the conflict in Bosnia.

with the assisstance of the mouse, viewers explore the surface of a moving hunting photograph. By this action, the viewer scans a range of topics on Bosnia and can choose any of 30 categories to examine news quotes set against the photograph. Three separate points of view are given. The Bosnian Muslims' , the Serbs' and outside news commentaries.

The viewer's experience of information search through this computer program interface is designed to reveal the traces of vision technologies' origins in military and medical applications - a particular kind of seeing that can be described as "search and destroy" or " hold still while I examine" .

Keywords: world event, sub-text, Balkan, dissemination, information, ethnic genocide, Western interests, media industry, Muslim, frame of reference, Europe, historical memory, narratives in context.