Constant Dullaart
Blogname
Defaultism
Netherlands, Germany, 2011
A default, in computer science, refers to a setting or value automatically assigned to a software application, computer program or device, outside of user intervention. Such settings are also called presets, especially for electronic devices. The Oxford English Dictionary dates this usage to the mid-1960s, as a variant of the older meaning of "failure in performance". Default values are generally intended to make a device (or control) usable "out of the box". A common setting, or at least a usable setting, is typically assigned.
Constant Dullaart's pieces engage in dialogue with accepted digital standards or "defaults" created by the networked environment, highlighting the tension between digital media as a homogenizing force and the individual's opportunity as a media outlet. His short lived performance on the popular microbloging website Tumblr consisted of posting Youtube video's showing only white or black, in the minimalist environment of the platforms standard design. Similar to his work Defaultism.com, a rotating series of "portraits" of website design formats, with any potential content replaced by the effectively meaningless placeholder text known to graphic and web designers as "Lorem ipsum" and a constant stream of ambient noise from a crowded room.
Constant Dullaart
Constant Dullaart's work explores contemporary modes of access, visibility and (mis)representation associated with the global spread of information and communication technologies. Dullaart responds to ideas regarding online transparency, hidden information and the multi-tiered infrastructure of the web and the different translations between man and machine. Dullaart's work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Frieze, Art-papers, Dismagazine, Monopol, Rhizome, TAZ and Texte zur Kunst, shown internationally at venues such as the New Museum, MassMoca and UMoca in the US, Rencontres d'Arles, Autocenter Berlin, the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie and works and lives in Berlin and Amsterdam.
http://constantdullaart.com
