GOOBALIZATION
A series of short online animations
by Eduardo Navas
http://www.navasse.net
eduardo-at-navasse.net

Goobalization III: Flash or Quicktime November 07
Goobalization-II: Flash or Quicktime July 05
Goobalization-I: Flash or Quicktime June 05

Third Animation developed
for Oog sponsored by newspaper de Volkskrant
November 20 - 27, 2007
Curated by Jody Zellen
Participating artists:
Natalie Bookchin, Antonio Mendoza
Eduardo Navas and Jody Zellen

Second Animation developed for
the exhibition ITINERARIES AND SOUVENIRS
Centro Cultural de España, Buenos Aires
Selections of Net art and CDROM Projects
Artists: Antoni Abad, Lucas Bambozzi, Arcángel Constantini, Dora García, Fran Ilich, Jorge Macchi, Brian Mackern, Eduardo Navas.
Curator: Gustavo Romano

First Animation developed for
The InteractivA 05 New Media Biennale
Executive Curator:
Raúl Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet
Invited Curators:
Lucrezia Cippitelli, Gita Hashemi
Junio 16-Julio 30 Centro Cultural Olimpo
Mérida, Yucatán, México

Spanish Version

Context for the Project Goobalization
by Eduardo Navas
June, 2005; revised November, 2007

Goobalization is an ongoing series of short online animations created with the use of Google. The images are downloaded from the web and presented in relation to four terms: surveillance, difference, resistance and globalization. The screen's top-left presents "surveillance", the top-right "difference", the bottom-left "resistance", and bottom-right "globalization". The images fade in and out at different intervals to give the online user enough time to view them. In what follows, I explain the relationship of these terms to each other as well as online culture.

Globalization, as it is well known, consists of international activities largely influenced, promoted, or enacted by major corporations. Cultural exchange has also become possible as a result of globalization, but usually in contingency to commercial interests. While globalization has led to what is often called multiculturalism, it has also increased economic inequality in countries around the world.

Surveillance complements the term "globalization" because of the ability by corporations, institutions, governments, as well as hackers, to oversee online activity either for commercial or political purposes.

Resistance was chosen following the theories of Michel Foucault to reflect upon the terms globalization and surveillance. Resistance can be thought of as a critical position useful to examine institutions as power structures. The term should not be thought of in opposition to the other two terms, but rather as complementary to them. Resistance when considered from this point of view can become a constructive concept that can lead to power-shifts.

Difference complements resistance. It is because of difference why resistance can be effective and, likewise, it is because of resistance that difference can manifest itself. Both of these terms can be considered useful forms to keep globalization and surveillance in check.

The project is called Goobalization because Google is the most popular search engine around the world. The term is a combination of the words Google and globalization. The word Goobalization emphasizes the fact that Google was used to search for all the images. The series of animations are developed to show how Google plays a large role as the preferred tool to promote global activities, at the same time that it can be used to resist and question the same activities by creating differences. It is because of Google's constant surveillance (scanning of webpages around the world) that it was possible to download all the images used in the animations. The animations show the dependency of the four terms in online culture.

It is important to note that subjectivity is implicated by my choices. Images were downloaded and then selected in order to create narratives with a deconstructive critical position. In this way, Goobalization presents material from around the world, which is dependent on four ideological terms that are particular to one person's point of view.

Sources:
Michel Foucault, "The subject of Power." Art After Modernism (New York: New Museum, 1984), 417-434.
For a general and decent online Globalization survey--Wikipedia on globalization

::Stills from third animation::

::Stills from second animation::

::Stills from first animation::