Julia Weist's Digital Interventions Explore Meaning and Search Algorithms

Julia Weist, an artist from New York, investigates how we create meaning online by tweaking Google search results. In 2015, she launched a project called Reach, which highlighted the obscure 17th-century word 'parbunkells' by featuring it on a billboard in Queens, part of the 14×48 public art series. Every time someone clicked the related webpage, a light bulb in her Upstate New York home lit up. Between 2013 and 2015, Weist also changed perceptions of Haim Steinbach's artwork by embedding references in various publications, resulting in a surge of Disney-related search results. Her varied projects include collecting discarded library books, photographing garage-sale items, and writing a self-published romance novel titled Sexy Librarian. She holds a BFA from Cooper Union and a Master’s from Pratt Institute. A solo show will be running at 83 Pitt Street in New York until February 21, 2016. This piece was curated by Orit Gat and first appeared in the January & February 2016 issue of ArtReview.