Sort (http://sort.pahomann.net)
The relationship of individuality to ownership, the politics of consumerism, and the mediating role of systems are investigated in Sort, an interactive web base work. Beginning in the winter of 2005 and ending August 22, 2005 I created a photographic taxonomy of all the objects in the apartment that I share with my partner, Leigh. These images have been compiled into a database and given keywords from categories ranging from personal to political. Users can sort the images by one or more keywords allowing them to see what Leigh and I own and compare our objects to their objects.
The ability to organize and re-organize the images on Sort serves to connect the physical reality of consumption and ownership with the more expansive data reality of online consumption of information. This convergence allows each reality to expand the dialogue of the other – the database driven website expands the ability to compare and contrast objects in the physical world and the objects provide a concrete limit-set from which to address the ever expanding pool of data available to consumers.
Prints/Image Overlays
