Evan Roth

Submission 6,468

Part of a series on Graffiti Research Lab. [View Related Entries]

About

Evan Roth is an American artist and computer programmer best known for co-founding the Graffiti Research Lab, a New York-based art group devoted to empowering writers, artists and protesters with open source technologies, as well as his involvement in dozens of other web-based solo and group art projects.

Online History

After seeing a piece of art created by Banksy, Roth decieded^[2] to persue a graduate degree at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. From 2005–2006 he worked as a Research and Development Fellow at the creative technology lab Eyebeam OpenLab, acting as Senior fellow from 2006-2007. His Twitter account^[1] was launched on September 28th, 2008, and as of April 2014, he has gained over 4,000 followers.

Graffiti Research Lab

Created by Roth and James Powderly, the Graffiti Research Lab] is a group of artists committed to helping street artists reach more people and overcome obstacles through technology. The group records their efforts and posts them on the site so all artists can access them. They are credited with inventing LED Throwies^[16], which are made up of an LED light, a battery, and a magnet. The Throwies can be tossed onto magnetic surfaces like metal buildings and statues to create an artistic statement.

Highlights

Internet Art

When-We-Were-Kings.com is a website descriped as "A commemorative reconstruction of the original best friend of the bored at work network," which features the set up of a game of computer solitare with one king of hearts card bouncing up and down against the bottom of the page leaving arches of cards in its wake.

Observing-User-Achievement.com is a website that features four small images of ice cream cones on rainbow backgrounds in the top lefthand corner of a black background. The images eventually release rainbow tails which bounce against the bottom of the page and leave rainbow arches in their wake.

Banners-and-Skyscrapers.com is a website that features a full page of web banners and ads slowly criss-crossing each other.

Officechair-on-Greenyellow.com is a website that features a full page of veritical lines of spinning blue animated GIFs of office chairs on a yellow-green background.

Kamasutra-on-Dimgray.com is a website that features an animated GIF of a man and woman having sex which multiplies until there are hundreds of the same GIF forming a pulsing doughnut shape.

Lightswitch-on-Ivory.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of animated lightswitch GIFs which slowly switch on and off and alternate from ivory to grey.

Rockingchair-on-Honeydew.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of animated rockingchair GIFs slowly rocking back and forth on a light green (honeydew) background.

Rodeo-on-Orangered.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of animated GIFs of a cowboy on a bucking bull on a red orange background.

Helicopter-on-Seashell.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of animated GIFs of a green helicopter on a light pink (seashell) background.

Sendemail-on-Skyblue.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of animated GIFs of two interlocking circles, one red, one yellow that read "send e-mail," on a sky bluebackground.

A Tribute to Heather

Collectively the 10 GIF based websites below are referred to as "A Tribute to Heather."^[6]

Flower-on-Lightgrey.com is a website that features two horizontal lines of animated GIFs of blue blooming flowers on a light grey background.

Hotairballoon-on-Whitesmoke.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of animated GIFs of multi-colored spinning hotair balloons on a light grey background.

Heather-on-Cyan.com is a website that features a horizontal line of a cluster of spinning golden annimated GIFs of the name Heather on a bright blue (cyan background).

Blimp-on-Deepskyblue.com is a website that features animated GIFS of a spinning blimp that quickly multiply until they form a pulsing doughnut shape.

Fighterjet-on-Lightcyan.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of spinning animated GIFs of fighter jets on a light blue (light cyan) background.

Email-on-Floralwhite.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of spinning blue animated GIFs of the word e-mail that crowd each other until the word is unreadable on an off-white background.

Shuttle-on-Dodgerblue.com is a website that features a full page of vertical lines of spinning animated GIFs spaceshuddles which criss-cross on a bright blue background.

Deer-on-Silver.com is a website that features a horizental line of animated GIFs of deer runnings on a silver background.

Keyboard-on-Deeppink.com is a website that featuresanimated GIFS of spinning piano keyboards which multiple until they form a spinning sphere on a pink background.

Revolver-on-Mintcream.com is a website that features a full page of verical lines of animated GIFs of revolvers spinning on a mint green background.

Badass Motherfucker (2005)

In 2005, Roth managed to Googlebomb his website^[5] to the number one search result on Google's PageRank for the keyword "Badass Motherfucker."^[4]

GIF Mashup (2006)

GIF Mashup^[13] is a tool created by Roth in January of 2006, which allows the user to mix together animated GIFs. The tool^[14] allows users to input the URLs of two GIFs, as well as the dimensions desired and a music file to be played with one or both portions of the combined GIF.

Cache Rules Everything Around Me from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

SkyMall Liberation (2007)

SkyMall Liberation ^[10] is an ongoing culture-jamming art project launched by Roth in 2007 which calls for airline travelers to create unique collage artworks by ripping the faces from the SkyMall in-flight shopping catalogue and re-arranging them in some way on their tray table. The first Sky Mall Liberation picture was uploaded to Roth’s Flickr account Urban_Data^[12] on July 19th, 2007.

h4. TSA Communications (2008)

TSA Communications was commissioned by the Rhizome Commissions Program^[7] in 2008.^[8] Displayed in Vienna, Detriot, Barcelona, College Park, Maryland and Ljubljana, Slovenia, the project is described as:

"a project that alters the airport security experience, inviting the government to learn more about passengers than just the contents of their carry on bags."

It features stainless steel sheets that can be put in passengers' luggage with messages etched on them that can be read by the TSA agents when they're put through the X-Ray machine. An example of a message could read, "Nothing to see here."

Typographic Illustrations (2008)

In November 2008, Roth created a typographic illustration video for Jay Z’s single “Brooklyn (Go Hard).”^[18]He completed the task in a single Thanksgiving weekend.

China Channel (2008)

Created in collaboration with Tobias Leingruber and Aram Bartholl, China Channel^[9] is a FireFox plugin that lets users see just what would and wouldn’t be censored if they were using the internet in China. The project explains the scope of China's internet censorship, listing subjects Chinese web browsers would likely be unable to access such as:

"Tibetan independence, Taiwan independence, police brutality, the Tienanmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, religion, and some international news."

The channel was first put on display in Hong Kong on April 11th, 2008, as part of an exhibit titled "Second Life," in which two computers hooked up to one keyboard and one mouse were left out, with one computer accessing the internet from Hong Kong, and one from mainland China. The users would have to experience the restrictions put on the computer by China.

Graffiti Research Lab

Created by Roth and James Powderly, the Graffiti Research Lab^[15] is a group of artists committed to helping street artists reach more people and overcome obstacles through technology. The group records their efforts and posts them on the site so all artists can access them. They are credited with inventing LED Throwies^[16], which are made up of an LED light, a battery, and a magnet. The Throwies can be tossed onto magnetic surfaces like metal buildings and statues to create an artistic statement.