Astronaut.io

Not all videos posted on YouTube are meant to get worldwide exposure: some are cast into the digital world, but never watched. Who really wants to sit through yet another close-up of a goldfish or an out-of-focus recording of an amateur band? In Astronaut.io, we get to see just a few seconds from thousands of YouTube videos uploaded in the last week that have titles like DSC 1234 and IMG 4321. The result is a feed of largely unedited, unseen videos that come from all over the world. They are like a collection of snapshots of our own lives, presented in a random sequence and without any common thread. The more films pass by, the more emotions we experience: surprise, embarrassment, genuine emotion and curiosity. What was that man about to do who was on-screen for a few seconds and said, "The day has come to show you..."? This interactive collage of film material is entertaining, but also poses questions. What drives us to want to record everything? Do we only exist when we're online? And who are we then if no one even sees us there?