Hyperrhiz 7
Congo Kodaks
Neil Hennessy
Prize Budget for Boys
Citation: Hennessy, Neil. “Congo Kodaks.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, no. 7, 2010. doi:10.20415/hyp/007.g02
Abstract: Congo Kodaks illustrates new media art's reliance on the suffering of unnamed millions, by using images from the Congo conflict to put cell phone and desktop wallpapers on devices containing coltan possibly/probably obtained from the Congo. The magazine Wallpaper*, as the Bible of Western yuppie design with a healthy gadget obsession, provides the vehicle for the satire. The number and type of wallpaper images come from perverting their tagline:
"Wallpaper - Design Interiors Fashion Art Lifestyle"
becomes
"Congo Wallpaper - Death Refugees Famine War Rape".
The phrases and language in the text that accompanies the wallpapers, as well as the visual layout and design of the page, are stolen directly from technology product reviews found on the Wallpaper* website.
Read Essay: A Consideration of Two New Media Art Projects and the Democratic Republic of the Congo