Public Access
by David Horvitz & Ed Steck
Public Access is an art project produced by David Horvitz in late December 2010 and early January 2011. For roughly two weeks, he drove along California's coast from the Mexican border up through the Oregon border. Along the way, he stopped and took pictures of himself looking out at the beach and other scenic vantage points, his stance recalling the iconic romantic painting "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich from 1818 and Bas Jan Ader's 1971 "Farewell to Faraway Friends." He then uploaded these photographs to the Wikipedia entries for these locations, adding new images or replacing existent images. This action produced a flurry of discussion amongst the Wikipedia community, as its members tried to figure out his identity and the purpose of the photos. Many of the original photos were cropped or deleted entirely. Graphic designer Eric Nylund designed the publication, which includes a text written by Ed Steck. This was made for the exhibition "As Yet Untitled: Artists and Writers in Collaboration" at SF Camerawork in San Francisco.
