I’m still not sure how I feel about JR‘s new project, Inside Out, which was launched this week at the TED conference. Here’s a summary of the project and here’s his speech from the conference (which will not show up if you’re reading this post in certain RSS readers):
The basic premise is that JR’s studio will print out black and white photos that you take and send you the posters if you’ll post them outside. There was even a photo booth in Long Beach, California where people could get posters printed instantly, but that has closed. Perhaps I’m being a pessimist, but I am not sure that Inside Out will change the world. I just imagine a bunch of self-important wanna-be Lindsay Lohan’s printing out pictures of themselves because they think it will make them famous. That said, I can certainly see the benefits of this project in the sort of communities that JR traditionally works. The question is, will those communities have enough access to cameras and awareness of the project? And compared to previous TED Prize projects, the potential impact of Inside Out is very different. The impact of Inside Out is just so individual. Not that that’s a bad thing, it just seems odd for TED. But hey, so many more people are being exposed to JR’s projects, and that’s a good thing.
So we’ll see how Inside Out goes. While I’m not confident that it is going to be a success, I’m hopeful.
Photo by raudog