2017

 

The use of mass media and the Internet with the purpose of research is often part of our everyday lives. It provides a great deal of our understanding about the world and in many cases serves as the foundation of our beliefs. This particular research, or actually – “investigation”, starts from one totally false artifact and then evolves into “research on wheels”, where the accomplished results are dictated by the “slope” than by the goals set. Nevertheless, though this is a fantasy, it uses means that we all regard as genuine. The project aims to show how easy it is to be misled by the falsified “facts” and how most of the time our research is the result of fantasies, bits of false information and subjectivity. Phenomena that are not alien even to the world leaders of today.

 

 The project concentrates on the investigation of a text written on a fabricated postcard (0) and more specifically, around one “Benny from Blue Hill, Maine” (the only name on the postcard). The goal is to investigate all the people with names such as Benjamin, Ben, Benny, Ruben, Benson, Bender and others, that are somehow connected with the town of Blue Hill, ME, USA (population little over 2700), to get to the real Benny. He does not exist and the research is meaningless, but the investigation shows that we can acquire “significant” results even from of the most insignificant false information. Results that dig deep into the context of existence of people that we know nothing about. The project tries to define where is the ethical line of interest that we can cross searching for the personal data of others, but also makes a point about our own personal data located and stored on the web. All the information acquired here is publicly accessible, using the following websites: Facebook, Spokeo, Google, Google Earth, Google Street View.

 

The public library of Blue Hill, ME issued a small publication with a list of donors for 2016. There we find nine persons that can be the suspected Benny. With the help of Spokeo platform we find their address.

 

Benn Wootten (1) – between 74 and 78 years old, lives on Pleasant St., teacher in the Consolidated School.

Benjamin Fox (2) – lives in the center of town, there is no information about either his ocupation or age.

Benjamin Moore (3) – 28 years old, lives up north on Pleasant St. In the center of Blue Hill there is a store named Benjamin Moore.

Benedict-Miller Foundation (4) – each year the foundation donates to different causes. Here we have a list of donations from 2014.

Dana Bennett (5) – 69 years old, lives on Ellsworth Rd.

Lucy Benjamin (6)  – lives in East Blue Hill, owns a small brand for healthy foods.

Nancee Bender (7) – 50 years old, lives in Wild Rose lnn. Known also as: Nancee Freeman and Nancee Radtke.

Ruben Steck (8) – 54 years old, registrated in Sedgwick, ME (west of Blue Hill)

Stephen Benson (9) – 49 years old, psychologist, PhD, also lives in Wild Rose ln. Known also as: Stephen Hamilton and Steven Benson.

 

In the teachers’ information in the John Stephens Academy we find one match.

This is:

Jonathan Bender (10) – 56 years old, lives in Bass Harbor, teaches mathematics.

 

In the teachers’ information of the Consolidated School we find one match.

This is:

Ben Wootten (1)  who is already known to us from the library donations list.

 

People with the name Ben, Benny, Benjamin, Ruben, Benson, Bender and others who have connection to Blue Hill, ME from Facebook are eleven. We find the addresses of two of them, theese are Benjamin Adams and Ben Eley.

Benjamin Adams (11) – 35 years old, lives north from the central part of town on Turkey Farm Rd.

Ben Eley (12) – lives on Beach Hill Rd.

The other nine names are:

Ben Dietrich (13)

Ben Mohamed (14)

Ben Long (15)

Ben Pötgens (16)

Ben Souders (17)

Benjamin Harrigan (18)

Benjamin Politte (19)

Benjamin Westphal (20)

Benny Gaffney (21)

There where no maches found in Bagaduce Music Lending Lybrary, Blue Hill Memorial hospital, first Congresional Church, first Baptist Church.

 

 

1 – Postcard 15×10 cm by Radoslav Ninov
2 – Movable board (metal/wood/plastic) dimensions variable