Marie Sester: Moved Settlement

           Marie Sester seems to focus on breaking out of what we consider to be our normal comfort zones.  From her statement from her website, she states, “I examine notions of transparency, visibility, and access.  And what makes things interesting is that her pieces seem to go beyond just an idea.  Her pieces are interactive, but not invasive instead they tend to create a space solely for the purpose of the project as opposed to intruding onto people’s lives.
          For example, in her piece, Moved Settlement (1997), she tries to create a space that is a representation of what she thinks Western comfort and furnishing really looks like.  What is interesting is that with new technology and surveillance capabilities, walls that seem to protect our privacy might as well be transparent, similar to the setup that she has.  Not only is it difficult to attain privacy, but because of how we value comfort over functionality, we have to make compromises as to how we want our living spaces to be like.

Anne-Marie Schleiner: Out

         
          What Anne-Marie Schleiner focuses on the use of new media, such as the internet, to convey other messages.   In some cases she uses the use of nodes and a server to set up a digital space where people can interact.  It speaks to the kind of media that we interact with.  In another case she focuses on how the media that we are exposed to can overload our senses and instead of just exposing us to what we need, we get an overload and in some cases it hurts us.
         
           
             An interesting project that Anne-Marie Schleiner worked on was called out.  Out is an acronym for Operations in Urban Terrain, which stems from Military Operations in Urban Terrain.  What Out focuses on is  the criticism of the militarization of citizen life.  While video games often try to simulate the realism and tactics of real war and combat, Out tries to simulate a video game version of war with the use of technology in real life.  And combats the notion that civilians should be involved the military.  It also combats the notion of surveillance, that is used to spy on ordinary people, through the justification of safety and national security’.