The Infinity Lab does The Getty (2008)
web-video, power-hacking project

The Getty's "Video Revolutionaries" website attacked by digital artists and "overthrown"!

http://videorevolutionaries.com:  Descendants or Bastard Children of the Getty's "California Video" exhibit?

The Getty-commissioned website, videorevolutionaries.com, has allegedly been overthrown by a group of San Diego artists called “The Infinity Lab”.  As an offshoot of the "California Video" exhibit currently on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA, the museum had created the "Video Revolutionaries" website as a way for emerging artists to "be a part of the video revolution."  The top rated videos were promised a screening at the Getty’s "Fridays Off the 405" event (a monthly event held outdoors in the courtyard of the Getty Center). Part YouTube, part "American Idol," with this Video Revolutionaries website anyone could upload videos, and rate and view other videos. Anyone, that is, who was pre-screened by the website’s administrators and allowed on to the website. It was a video art extravaganza--until the contest was abruptly ended by the apparent onslaught of “cheaters”.

Although an obvious attempt to stay up to date to the latest in pop culture, it seems The Getty had not fully thought through the idea of using the Internet as opposed to the gallery for displaying video art. It quickly became apparent that the site was plagued by the tricks of “net artists”. For example, The Infinity Lab videos seemed to dominate the most viewed and highest rated sections of the site, and the top viewed and highest rated video opens with the words “This is a Digital Hijack”. It appears that the Infinity Lab has forcefully inserted themselves into the highest positions on the website-- showing the Getty the flawed notions of using this populist Internet rating system to determine “the best” video art of the general public.

The content of The Infinity Lab’s clips seems to differ from other highly rated videos on the site.  Most of the other works are fairly abstract and can pass as ambient, experimental video.  Whereas The Infinity Lab’s videos star three characters with tinfoil or medical masks sloppily placed on their faces engaging in odd, random behaviors like dancing around in a backyard next to a toy swimming pool or barbequing tin foil-laden silver bones.  It is possible these absurdist pieces are conceptual farces of Video Art or YouTube culture, but The Infinity Lab doesn't offer any explanation to the Video Revolutionaries viewers.

It is evident that “Video Revolutionaries” is an ironic title for this Getty sponsored on-line public, faux New Media exhibition.  In order to upload videos, artists must agree to a vast array of rules and regulations that can only be seen as a form of censorship.  Simultaneously, the "California Video" artists whose work is inside the museum present videos that defy homogenized notions of artmaking in the confines of an elite institution.  Would the transgressive actions of the Kipper Kids urinating in a cup be allowed on the Video Revolutionaries website? Or does censorship only pertain to those less privileged?

Perhaps this dichotomy invites an electronic hostile take over. It could be said that the “hijack” (although technically more of a net art prank) is an attempt to create a project that is truly inspired by their conceptual predecessors. In their public statement, The Infinity Lab denies all association with any alleged hijack. They do however site a long list of net art artists who have done similar things in the past (some of whom they have even studied under at local Universities).

The website hack exposes the weaknesses of the Getty’s attempt to cross into this Internet art realm, and the “video overthrow” was apparently an attempt to include absurdity into this pop-culture experiment performed by The Getty.

As promised, the Getty did screen some of the “Video Revolutionaries” videos on March 30th during the “Fridays off the 405” event, but the videos screened were not the top-rated videos as stated on the Video Revolutionaries website. The top rated video, “Digital Hijack”, was conspicuously absent from the screening. They did include one Infinity Lab video, but was not the highest rated. It seemed to be a random sampling of the highest-viewed (not highest rated) videos that were shown, and they were not shown in the courtyard with the rest of the attractions but in an out-of-the-way lecture hall inside and downstairs—far from the public events of that Friday evening. So, the ivory walls of imported Italian travertine were penetrated by The Infinity Lab and a few other online video artists who were “lucky” enough to be deemed adequate for screening in a downstairs lecture hall of the Getty Center. 

If a revolution is a modification of an existing methodology, constitution, or structure, then The Infinity Lab has succeeded in a tiny revolution that is not "homogenized" by The Getty or the videorevolutionaries.com website.

Any possible further effects of this overthrow are still unknown at this time.

The Infinity Lab can be found online:
http://youtube.com/theinfinitylab
http://myspace.com/theinfinitylab
http://theinfinitylab.com

…and perhaps at
http://videorevolutionaries.com
(until the Getty shuts down the website)