HW3.4.1 Social Media Artist Research: Man Bartlett

Man Bartlett is an artist who used the open platform of social media to produce a work that examines the boundaries between public and private affairs.  From 2011 to 2012, as a reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement, he publicly tracked his finances on the Twitter account, @OccupyMan, and on a public Google Document.  He tweeted every financial transaction he made and included the amount of money he spent or received.  As we have become a more digital society, we have become more and more open to sharing our private lives with the public.  Most people would not think much of uploading a picture of their lunch or their vacation to Twitter, but money has always been a social taboo.  By publicly airing his financials, Bartlett takes the social aspect of our society to the extreme and critiques the financial secrecy of Wall Street.

Sources:

http://www.manbartlett.com/actions/