WANTED: a human connection in an anonymous megalopolis

How does one deal with the growing alienation of the 'global village' as that village swells to resemble an airport terminal full of nameless faces going to nameless places more than any commonly recognized sense of a village?
Craigslist is today's bulletin board: an increasingly accessible Internet tableau of anonymous yet localized information exchange, designed for clicking through conveniently and quickly — two ubiquitous contemporary catchphrases. Craigslist is a new type of neighborhood: one that replaces physical boundaries with virtual interaction.

The project THANKS CRAIG reintroduces this neighborhood into the physical realm. Katarzyna Balug, Chris Reynolds and Mélanie Wider attempt to assign faces and names to this community through three individual endeavors. "Walk a Mile," "The Fortune Cookie Project," and "Im•migrant" result from virtual communication leading to physical meetings with Craigslist users. While developing these projects, the three collaborated on a website and poster series, engaging both the online and urban community of Los Angeles.

The website THANKSCRAIG.net serves as a proposal to present THANKS CRAIG, a group show featuring Balug, Reynolds and Wider's Craigslist-inspired projects. Rather than seeking galleries to present their work, the three artists built a site similar to the basic conceptual framework of Craigslist, yet with a more specific goal. Like a Craigslist posting, the site announces a service or good — the group exhibit — and offers a contact email, hoping to generate a response to the proposal.

The website is advertised through postings on Craigslist, directing the original community to the result of interactions among its members.
To balance this virtual presence with the physical realm, the three artists have created a series of essentially blank posters as an homage to Craigslist, asking Angelinos to describe the influence of the site on their life. Displayed amid the city's visual pollution, these silkscreen prints ask passersby "What has Craigslist done for you?" inviting them to fill in the blank poster. The posters simultaneously advertise the website, and thus the proposal.

Inspired by the likes of Harrell Fletcher, Robbie Conal, and French photographer JR, the posters seek to engage the public directly, bringing forth memories of a moment spent in virtual reality to the physical experience of the street. The posters are currently being distributed throughout the city — some are pasted onto public lots, others hang on bulletin boards, and still others are mailed to galleries as an announcement to visit the proposal website. Their locations will be documented on the website.

The project THANKS CRAIG functions on multiple levels to provide a sampling of and a response to living in Los Angeles, our global village.