This blog recently participated in a seance and asked the late Theodor Adorno some questions:
TM: Which version of the Mariah Carey green screen video do you like better, Oliver Laric's* or Caspar Stracke's?
TA: They are both rather terrible. Art that relies on the simplistic device of subtracting information with digital tools isn't really art at all, is it? No, strike that, Joe McKay's UFOs made from partially erased street lamps were quite poignant, so it can be done in the right hands.
TM: But if you had to choose, which would it be, Laric or Stracke?
TA: Laric's video, I suppose, because it allows you to ogle this magnifique sexy woman with no surrounding distractions, other than the fact that she is hovering somewhat clumsily in a green monochrome. Whereas with the Stracke you are forced to look at the horrible actor who plays the computer nerd "rocking out" and such and the femme fatale is reduced to a green silhouette.
TM: What did you think of the Mariah Carey video when "net artists" were just linking to it as a found object?
TA: Bad, bad. Carey's producers reached out to the nerd demographic and the nerds took the bait. We are still doing it with this interview.
TM: Thank you for your time, sir.
*Update, 2011: The Rhizome link has been changed to http://rhizome.org/editorial/2008/jun/30/go-ahead-touch-her/