Our discussion about Implementation reminded me of graffiti art, which also seems viral in nature, as it spreads like wild fire in various cities all around the world. I agree with Krisztian’s argument that Implementation might be more about “how a counter-cultural movement begins and works” than psychological warfare, for instance. I think one of the main goals behind the project is to get people involved in the story-making process. The sticker idea encourages a collaborative effort and offers people the opportunity to add their own meanings to the work. According to Montfort and Rettberg, “We hope that this form of interaction will engender new and unanticipated meanings as Implementation is situated in specific public spaces that resonate with the texts in different ways.” In other words, the ways in which people choose to situate and photograph the stickers add new meaning to the work. A passerby who reads a sticker in Philadelphia, for instance, would interpret the text differently than someone reading the same sticker in Tokyo.
At the same time, however, it’s difficult to piece the different texts together and construct a complete, full-blown narrative, just as it’s difficult to form a narrative from various graffiti tags across New York. I think it’s almost impossible to fully grasp all of the major themes of the work. However, as we discussed in class, individual stickers can be effective and thought-provoking on their own. The story begins to take shape as more and more people take action, too. Although I don’t think that Montfort and Rettberg wanted their audiences to uncover the full narrative, the Internet helps us put some of the pieces together. If it wasn’t for the Web, we probably wouldn’t know that this project even existed. With the image archive, we can see stickers popping up all over the world and compare stickers side-by-side. The same holds true for graffiti art. You can find archives full of graffiti art online. Here’s an example: http://www.graffiti.org/. With the help of the Internet, we can at least form some kind of coherent narrative.