"The danger is in the neatness of identifications."
--Samuel Beckett, “Dante...Bruno.Vico..Joyce”

What is this?

The 2008 election inspired me to work up this little puppy, Purple, which basically shows that, as the big man says, there are no red or blue states, only purple states. It shows the 2008 presidenital election results in percentages of the color purple. So in other words, if a state voted 60% for Obama and 40% for McCain, it is colored in with a purple that is 60% blue and 40% red. If a state voted 40% for Obama and 60% for McCain, it is colored in with a purple that is 60% red and 40% blue. The point being, again, that even the bluest and reddest states here are still variants on purple.

You can get the full-size version of the map here.

Here's the technical info if you're interested: The election percentages I used are those from NPR. The way I created the colors was to use RGB color mode: my official purple was defined as having a Red content of 128, a Green content of 0, and a Blue content of 128. An electoral advantage for the Democrats would move the Blue content up and the Red content down by the appropriate percentage, and an electoral advantage for the Republicans would move the Red content up and the Blue content down. So a theoretical 100% vote for the Democrats would move the scale all the way up to 255 Blue, 0 Green, and 0 Red, and a 100% vote for the Republicans would move it to 0 Blue, 0 Green, and 255 Red. "Average" or "base" purple (128/0/128) can be seen here in Missouri, which had equal percentages for both parties when you round off to the nearest integer.

Who am I?

Chris Wildrick is a conceptual and performance artist who is interested in mapping systems of being and perception onto one another, exploring the points at which those systems are analogous and the points at which they are not. His work tends to be characterized by a sense of humor, an exploration of the aesthetics of presentation, and a tension between data and phenomena. He uses large-format digital prints, video, performance, books, graphs, ID cards, fortune cookies, and whatever other media best present the concepts and processes he is trying to examine. Chris likes to make work that is friendly and accessible to the average person while also posing experimental propositions about the field for consideration by other artists; he believes art can be entertaining without sacrificing its sophistication or depth.

This site is updated regularly. Browse the current contents through the links on the left, and make sure to check out the interactive projects page. I have, amazingly, finally gotten around to using thumbnails instead of text links for all the new pages I've added. I am theoretically going to go back in and do this for all the old work too, but let's assume that's going to happen at a very slow pace at best!

You can contact Chris at chris.wildrick at gmail.com.