David Crawford: Stop Motion Studies – Series 7
March 2003
David Crawford: Stop Motion Studies – Series 7
David Crawford’s Stop Motion Studies – Series 7 presents an interactive spatial montage of short video clips that show subway commuters from four cities—New York, Boston, London, and Paris—simultaneously in a grid. A pull-down menu below the grid allows users to select clips sorted by the people depicted (man, woman, couple, kids), their actions (such as sleeps or reads), behaviors (such as upset or nervous), and the objects they wear or carry (for example, a hat or glasses). Stop Motion Studies applies database logic as a creative filter by nesting the clips within a categorical hierarchy, and users can construct mini-narratives based on the selections they make. Crawford considered the subway a vibrant and egalitarian network that brings together people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, shaping both the character of a city and the individual identities of its residents. Stop Motion Studies explores the subway as a stage for social behaviors mediated by digital technology.
David Crawford (1970–2009) received several Turbulence.org (1996–2016) commissions, including Here and Now (1998), National Velvet (2000), and Stop Motion Studies – Tokyo (2003). His Light of Speed project was a finalist for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Webby Prize for Excellence in Online Art (2000). Crawford’s Stop Motion Studies project received an Award of Distinction in the Net Vision category of the Prix Ars Electronica (2003) and entered the collection of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. In 2004 he received an MSc degree from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Crawford received a PhD in fine, applied, and performing arts from Gothenburg University in 2009. His art has been featured in publications such as the Guardian, United Kingdom, and Leonardo, and his writing has been published by Princeton Architectural Press and Springer.
Gate Pages
Every month from March 2001 to February 2006, the Whitney invited an artist or collective to present their work in the form of a “Gate Page” on artport. Each page was meant to function as a portal to the artist’s own sites and projects. The Gate Pages comprise a range of artistic approaches to the format—while some of them are designed as entry points to the respective artist’s website or promote a recently launched work, others take the form of a more complex stand-alone project.
Wherever necessary and possible, these works are made functional through emulation and reconstructions from the Internet Archive. Not all of them have been restored to their original state and their conservation is ongoing. You can also view the original Gate Pages archive to see how they were presented at the time of their creation.
artport
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