Blank Carbon Copy by Motomichi Nakamura (2005)

Motomichi Nakamura is a digital artist, residing in New York City. Over the years he has traveled the world to work on his various digital media project. His work is done on only black, white, and red pallets where he paints and digitally produces his abstract characters.  His 2005 work, Blank Carbon Copy (BCC), is done on a white pallet with the objects (the hands) colored in black and flashing in red when a mouse is dragged over them. While BCC is not a graphic depiction most of Motomichi’s work depicts scenes of intense violence and sexuality. Along with his work with Rhizome, he has done digital artwork for many commercial companies, including MTV2. His piece, BCC, can be found here on the Rhizome website.

Blank Carbon Copy is a flash animation on a white pallet, with a large hand all the way to the left of the animation, and hands increasing in size from left to right next to the large hand for a total of four hands in the animation. The sound associated with this image sound quite similar to typing, which leads the viewer to associate the piece with a computer. By the association of the computer, most viewers back in 2005 (when the piece came out) would generally relate the computer not as a word processor, but as a means of browsing the Internet. Along with the sound, the motion of the fingers can also be symbolic as typing on a computer, or a social network. Also, the way that the hands are arranged from smaller, to larger reminds the viewer of a cell phone signal, like the bars on the old Cingular Wireless commercials. Combing the arrangements of the hands along with the sound, it also leads the viewer to think about texting on a cell phone as a means of communication. I think the title Blank Carbon Copy, is the implication that nobody travels to see or meet people anymore, because many are able to simply sit in front of their computer and meet people all the same. The red flash over the hands is the artist expressing his feeling that social interaction weakening due to social networks.

The only critique that I have of the piece is the artist’s use of space. The hands, to me, represent people. I feel that Motomichi is implying that people are not communicating as well with one another. A better way to depict this is to allow more space in the animation and move the hands further apart from one another. This being done, it would be able to better symbolize the decline in personal communication. Overall I thought this was a brilliant piece which subtly expresses the artist’s personal opinion about the internet, and new forms of communication.