"Flag as inapproriate". This unconspicuous button with a flag icon appears underneath every single YouTube video we watch marking the limits of our freedom in the Internet. Once flagged by anonymous users, after being checked by the also anonymous YouTube team, a video quickly disappears forever. In exactly this process, Dominic Gagnon intervenes. He 'saves' the flagged videos before they are deleted and adds them to a dark and mythological collage of American survivalism. People have their say, who deeply mistrust the government, who warn their fellow citizens, and who arm themselves visibly. An unclear image emerges. While the protagonists are scared of the almighty American government, the viewer is irritated what to find the most threatening in this "hell": the United States of America, the critics armed to the teeth with conspiracy theories, or the anonymous censorship power of the companies which control the web. The protagonists of Pieces and Love All to Hell are mostly female, whereas in Gagnon's earlier work RIP in Pieces America (transmediale.10) they were mainly male.
(Image: Dominic Gagnon. Pieces and Love All to Hell)
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(Image: Dominic Gagnon. Pieces and Love All to Hell)
