Rachel is ...

Boston artist, Rachel Perry Welty (represented by Barbara Krakow Gallery), did a really interesting performance piece last week (3/11/09) on Facebook. She updated her status almost every minute for 16 straight hours. Although this is similar to Kenneth Goldsmith's "Fidget," in which he transcribes every movement that his body made one day in 1997, Rachel Perry Welty has made a much more culturally relevent work. I have often joked about some of my Facebook friends who constantly update their status, saying that it's nice to know when they are using the toilet. If you would have been Rachel's Facebook friend that day, you would have been bombarded by updates, most of which were mundane and not really worthy of a status update. It brings up several questions: Why do some people feel the need to post updates that would interest nobody? How much information is too much? Where is the line between caring about soneone's update and wanting to remove them as a friend because they abuse updates? Do we really feel like the details of our daily lives are important enough to post publically? Is Facebook really a narcissistic activity instead of social networking?
If you are interested in checking out the piece, you have to become a friend of Rachel Perry Welty on Facebook.