Phase4:Google Image Trawl

There seemed so many options in Phase4, but actually no easy way out. I finally decided to pick Google Image Trawl, cause it was relatively easy to control the whole process.
Then I started brain storming, tried to list some key words and input them in Google search bar. I expected something interesting come out.
That didn't work out as the way I want.
Just felt like to relax, I went to one of the biggest online Chinese bbs. There were many interesting topics published in every second. I accidentally clicked one of the post, it talked about something related to the Phase4 - something about how online contexts change the nature of the image and reframe it.
I copied the key word "春熙路刀客(Knife Guy in the Sunshine Spring Road), pasted it in Google image search, clicked the search button.
After a few seconds, a series of images appeared, some of them looked like what Ineed. I searched through the links, found the original images. It basically caught a dramatic moment of a man standing in the local street, with a knife on hand, staring at a couple of Chinese police who surrounded him, then he started to fight and struggle. The original scene itself already sent strong messages, which could come out as varies interepretations from the audiences` side.
This story firstly appeared as local news online and attracted some audiences. Some of them started to recontextualize these images using graphic design tools, such as photoshop. Here the nature of the online medium played an important role- comparing with the paper medium, it not only allowed the audience to view, but also gave them choices to download, make change and upload. Once this action started, more and more viewers followed and posted the recontextualized works. The recreated images kind of reflected the viewer`s identities, perspectives and concepts, which reflected local and international commercial culture, pop culture culture, social and political issues... This group work of image recontextualize could be valued as some kind of conceptual practice using online medium, although many people who participated might not be aware of what they did.

So my Phase4 would be about the issues I mentioned above. The digital representation would be made by Flash. In this way it could be more flexible while dealing with image sequences.
In the future, I might post my Phase4 to English based online forums.