MaMA 

MAMA’s first exhibition of 2013 is by Jon Rafman. Rafman’s 9 Eyes project is made up of a collection of screenshots taken from Google Street View. 9 Eyes is probably the best representation of the contemporary ‘connected’ world. Like a modern-day flaneur, Rafman wanders through Street View searching for the most bizarre, eerie, and beautiful images and places. 9 Eyes currently consists of hundreds of images and is a work in progress.

Rafman began exploring Street View in 2008, the year of its launch as part of Google Maps. One of his tactics is to follow the Google car’s latest routes so he can visit cities and regions that have been documented only recently. This means there’s less chance that Google has already changed or blurred the strangest and most unexpected images. Rafman’s work has a large online following, “I’m famous with Tumblr kids, they’re my demographic.”

Together with Oscar Murillo and Joey Verberkt, Jon Rafman gets the ball rolling on MAMA’s new program. From 2013 MAMA’s program comprises three strands of related content.

In ‘All Together Now’ the focus in on ‘participant activated’ installations and performances in which public participation plays a role, but the artists are the catalyst of the events.
In the theme ‘Eyes Wide Open’ we seek artists who incorporate social, political, and economic reality into their work.

The last line of content is called ‘Internet Aware’ and focuses on online and offline art and culture, where objects and images cannot be understood without know-ledge of the systems, symbols, and possibilities created and offered by the Internet.