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CULTURE

French artist publishes every Google search she ever did

When French artist Albertine Meunier discovered in 2006 that Google was storing her entire search history, she decided to retaliate in a unique and "very boring" way: publishing it all in a book.

French artist publishes every Google search she ever did
Meunier has already published three volumes of her Google searches, and has recently opened an exhibition in Paris in which she has papered the walls of her gallery with those searches. Photo: Pixabay.

“At that time, it was difficult to access your own data, so I had to copy and paste incessantly,” Meunier told AFP in her small gallery in central Paris.

Sixteen years later, things have changed and anyone can use Google’s TakeOut service to download their entire browsing history, which is stored on its servers, though it can take hours or even days to download it all.

Meunier has already published three volumes of her Google searches, and has recently opened an exhibition in Paris in which she has papered the walls of her gallery with those searches.

A digital artist and pioneer of using NFTs (digital certificates, often linked to online art), she is aware that the searches make for dull reading.

“It’s very, very boring,” she said. “Mainly because everyone’s life is pretty boring.”

But the project aims to draw attention to the vast reams of data being stored about each of us on the servers of tech giants — and which they use to make billions of dollars from advertisers.

“If everyone started releasing their data publicly, bit by bit, you could destroy the value that those companies are built on,” she said.

Meunier is an avid collector of NFTs, which had a boom in 2020 and 2021 but have seen their value collapse along with the price of cryptocurrencies in recent months.

The peak came in March 2021 when digital artist Beeple auctioned a work for $69.3 million, the third-highest figure in history for a living artist.

The NFT market saw a 77-percent drop in the third quarter of the year — a net loss of some $450 million, according to specialist site NonFungible.

That doesn’t bother Meunier. “The speculation only benefitted a certain class of artists,” she said.

Meunier still sees NFTs as a useful form of support for artists, especially since they allow them to receive a commission each time their work is resold — which has never been possible in the art market before.

According to NonFungible, however, resales were down 84 percent in the second quarter, and some platforms such as LooksRare said they would no longer insist on commissions to artists.

“The fall is noticeable, of course,” said Meunier. “But I continue collecting and advocating for them.”

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CULTURE

Activist arrested for attacking Monet painting in Paris

A climate activist was arrested on Saturday for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global warming, a police source told AFP.

Activist arrested for attacking Monet painting in Paris

The action by the woman, a member of “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Response) — a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production — was seen in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, placing a blood-red poster over the “Coquelicots” (Poppies) painting by Claude Monet, a French Impressionist painter.

In the video she said of the poster covering Monet’s art that “this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place”.

Monet’s painting, completed in 1873, shows people with umbrellas strolling in a blooming poppy field.

It was not protected by glass. The Musee d’Orsay did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on the condition of the painting after the attack.

Riposte Alimentaire has claimed responsibility for several attacks on art in a bid to draw attention to the climate crisis.

They include soup attacks on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, and on another Monet painting, “Springtime”, in the Lyon Fine Arts Museum in February.

Last month activists belonging to the group stuck flyers around “Liberty Leading the People”, a painting by Eugene Delacroix in the Louvre.

In April, two of its members were arrested at the Musee d’Orsay suspected of preparing an action there.

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