Guthrie Lonergan’s perspective on the use of “defaults” in creative technology is well-recognized in the Internet art community. His chart (http://guthguth.blogspot.com/2007/01/hacking-defaults-hacking-nintendo.html) constitutes an often-cited proposition that creative practices online oscillate inescapably between “hacking” and “default” usage of given tools. This dilemma grows more and more familiar as the line between artist and internet user is blurred by the widespread access to creative software and online media sharing.

Lonergan’s new work, “Recent music videos”, engages the interplay between naive and professional media production through his usage of stock video transitions and built-in software musical instruments. Using these “default” tools, he creates representations of situations which he feels evoke the atmosphere of the Internet, such as university dorms and spaces built using unmistakably mass-produced materials. He describes the results as existing “in the uncanny valley between art and YouTube.”