know chain link is an interactive work that investigates the ‘links’ between people, first through a series of portrait drawings, then within the context of a screen-based online experience. Through a need to engage the subject matter directly, Steven McCarthy proceeded to draw his immediate family (linked by marriage and progeny), then referrals to his son’s second grade friends, and eventually to some extended family members and friends.

The idea of hyperlinking, taken for granted electronically to mean connecting to another website, or as writer Steven Johnson states in Interface Culture, “The [hypertext] link is the first significant form of punctuation to emerge in centuries...”, is considered by some to improve our society’s experience of ‘community’. Others decry the opposite: anonymous surfing, vapid chat room dialog, emailed ‘spam’ messages – all while not knowing one’s next door neighbor: these can contribute to a dismantling of civic engagement, and a dissolution of community.

The effort then, in know chain link, was to explore the various structures of knowing, linking, participating in the chain of humanity, both through pencil, paper and collage elements (all drawings are from life, generally a 30-40 minute session), and through an interactive technological experience that enables this concept to be shared and disseminated.

self-initiated project | 2001