Martin Allman – WAR

War Introduction | SOMArts Gallery View | Thumbnail/Index Page

Martin Allman

The interaction is simple, pick up the book, open it and read.  This web based work attempts to capture that simplicity and directness.  This work is titled “conflict.”  The viewer is presented with a blank window and instruction that reads “click any where”.

In any conflict there will be voices raised in opposition to each other, we ask, who is saying what, when and why?  Over time the voices coalesce and become noise and to make reasoned sense of the situation becomes more difficult.  The picture greys.  Here the words become the image, a grey indecipherable blob emerges from the interaction.  This work records the voices in one such conflict; each mouse click invokes a voice from the recent past.  The nature of the engagement means that each interaction will be unique; a different picture emerges, every individual has to make sense of this world.

The voices have been verified and are historically true.