27 March, 2013

Text-Free Internet Browsing

A Less-Than-Better Way To Browse

(but still worth its weight in art)


Imagine reading a book with no words, yet gathering from it an entire story. It would literally be a tale of nothing; unless it was a picture book; but that's regardless of what I'm trying to say.



What I'm trying to say is that last week I brought you a post about lookingatsomething, the briefly amusing weather website-artpiece from 33-year-old Dutch-Brazilian creator/designer/artist Rafaël Rozendaal. This go round, it's a little more interesting than rain makin'. 

His precursory 2013 project Text Free Browsing is an app that takes the words right out of your mouth; or, more literally, right off your webpage. Once you install the free Google Chrome app, click on the "nerdy little face to turn off all text on the internet [sic]. You can turn it on and off on [sic] at any moment," instructs the artist in broken-English grammar on his website. (I'm not hating. I'm just pedantic.)




Text Free Browsing may be my favorite creation from Rozendaal. Besides being incredible leverage for screwing with your roommate's sense of reality (possibly the best Facebook hack you can execute this whole month), it does what art is supposed to. It makes us feel. While this particular piece may make us feel helpless, it emphasizes the importance of the written word - something we've seemed to have lost over the course of texting, browsing, and full-length episodes of Honey Boo Boo.





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