We’re used to creating sense from image sequences, it’s what we do when we watch a film. We piece the sequences together and form a narrative so that we can travel along a trajectory that takes us from one place to the other. Either an emotional starting point or an intellectual one that ends at some other place. We hope to have changed in some way even if it’s just questioning what we’ve seen. So we should be fully trained by our culture to view the image sequences in The Internet Speaks by Richard Wright create stories from them.

Yet viewing the images and putting them into context doesn’t necessarily come easily to the viewer. It could be because there is no context in which to relate the continual change of images that come at us, no obvious linear process that would give us the chance to be lazy and just view the images without thought. We have to actually think and add something of our own imaginations to make the piece work for us.

There are two versions to this project. The gallery based piece that automatically selects random images and displays them on the gallery wall, and the Internet version that offers the viewer a next and back button with which to scroll through and reverse the sequence so that they can return and reconsider the images. The second, Internet-based work allows the viewer to cheat a little bit, giving them the opportunity to think through the sequence and rework the narrative as it unfurls. It also tempts the viewer to play around with how much they are able to remember the previous image: go back, was it that, what does it mean now?

The ease of use belies the complexity of the questions that the work asks of the Internet. If it is truly the Internet speaking to us, surely we should be granted the right to see the words that it uses as well as the images? Perhaps so, but the words are pushed back here and asked to take second place. We need them to become invisible and not interfere with the pleasure of the work. Given that the text and indeed hypertext, is the basis of the web, and sits as some kind of post-Derrida response to the importance of the text over all else, The Internet Speaks is a reminder that we are dealing with thousands of images everyday and not always taking on board the text surrounding them. We may feel as though we have access to a huge library resource and as much text online as any half decent library could offer, but really, most of us are only viewing the videos and images anyway.

Drawing the images from the Internet also brings another interesting issue when trying to make sense of the work (and you will find yourself trying to do so, as Wright himself has remarked: we all try to find faces in the flames of a fire, so why wouldn’t we search for narrative in something like this?). This pulling together of the images means that multiple cultures, reference points and ideologies are going to be shown. There may be a technical graph from a PowerPoint presentation, then an image of a mother nursing a child. The mother looks as though she might be from Iraq, the graph looks decidedly American, because after all, Microsoft and the world of computers are inherently US-centric aren’t they? How do we read this? Can we trust that we aren’t just reading these images in the context of our own culture? The Internet is supposed to break down these cultural barriers and open our minds to a whole world of differences and allow us to experience multiple worlds, but it doesn’t. Quite often we behave like the old turn of the 19th century explorers making our way around the globe and always looking with Western eyes at the strange sights before us: viewing things as odd, uncivilized and even worse, not particularly Christian (god-ahem-forbid!). So we have to try to play with the images and piece them together without any kind of prejudice. Which is hard because there isn’t even a reference point to avoid.

But that’s why a project like The Internet Speaks is so relevant to our contemporary web culture. We have no reference points beyond ourselves, and we don’t know if we can trust the images and our own reading, because they might be flawed in some way. If the Internet is speaking to us, it is saying that we should be cautious and not judge too quickly what we see. We should ensure that the narratives aren’t just created from our own pre-conceptions, but take into account the cultural references of others.

The Internet Speaks in many voices, despite the attempts at global homogeneity some would try to impose on us.