Misha's Blog

My Solace 2.0 project encountered some interesting snags. First, Bird Library employees pulled and threw away my brochures. When I was first figuring out the brochure design I kept thinking about how the installation had to conform to the library venue in unique ways. For example, due to a history of artwork theft, the installation had to be ensconced in the heavy wooden case. This limitation turned into a benefit when the case proved to have just enough space for the work. I thought that since the library is informing and encroaching on my artwork in an interesting way, I should reflect this reality and creatively encroach on the library—just to smooth out the borders between the art and the library.

The library brochure, called “Research Helper” is actually a well designed note-taking booklet with lots of blank pages inside. I decided to write my artist statement on the blank slate pages of the library Research Helper brochure. But this proved tedious, so I decided to scan the brochure, add my text, and print out copies. I modified the design and added more icons and information, while keeping the original design credit and the library logo. This worked well for about three weeks, after which the library became concerned about their logo used in such an unofficial way. What they did was not censorship per se, but a legally motivated action that I can’t really argue with. In place of my brochure, Ann Skiold printed out the library’s blog post about the installation and stuck copies in the brochure holder, which was a positive gesture.

This was not the only snag, however. I noticed after about a month of running Solace 2.0 at the library that new points were not being created, while the old points were still being pruned normally. The face was starting to thin out and disappear. It appears that Foursquare didn’t like something about the project, and deleted my account without warning. I read all the terms and policies before I did the project, and wasn’t breaking any rules. I kept my API use below the request frequency limit and didn’t create multiple accounts. We will see what they say.

Email to Foursquare:

“Hello,

I noticed about a month ago that my Foursquare account was deleted without warning. I wasn’t breaking any of the terms of use, and was using the API within the API frequency use limit. I am an artist, and I am using Foursquare for an art project. Here is a brief description of the project. The second blog post down is an artist statement.

https://misharabinovich.com/blog/?cat=18

I was wondering why my account was deleted. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I’m getting ready to release detailed documentation about the project and my findings. I think you would be interested in what I discovered. However, I wanted to find out what happened with my account before I did so. My user id was 3283208

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Misha Rabinovich”