Penelope Umbrico

Suns from the Internet
2006-2007

Artist Statement:
This is a project I started when I found 541,795 pictures of sunsets searching the word “sunset” on the image hosting website, Flickr. I cropped just the suns from these pictures and uploaded them to Kodak, making 4" x 6" machine prints from them.

For each installation, the title reflects the number of hits I got searching "sunset" on Flickr on the day I made/print the piece – for example, the title of the piece for the Gallery of Modern Art, Australia, was “2,303,057 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 9/25/07” and for the New York Photo Festival it was "3,221,717 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 3/31/08" - the title itself becoming a comment on the ever increasing use of web-based photo communities, and a reflection of the ubiquity of pre-scripted collective content there. I think it's peculiar that the sun, the quintessential life giver, constant in our lives, symbol of enlightenment, spirituality, eternity, all things unreachable and ephemeral, omnipotent provider of optimism and vitamin D, and so universally photographed, finds expression on the internet, the most virtual of spaces equally infinite but within a closed electrical circuit. Looking into this cool electronic space one finds a virtual window onto the natural world.

Web presence:

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunsfromflickr-umbrico/

Second Life: virtual post-cards of these images made to distribute on the open-ended virtual world “Second Life” as virtual ditritus.