A few days back I thought I'd check out my google stats, and just one month made for extensive reading - all manner of pie charts, graphs, maps, lists. These stats are like a virtual calling card, giving a wealth of visitor profile information, such as geographic location, whether visitors are new or returners, isp and browser type, time of arrival and departure, referring sites, etc... a virtual nosey parker sitting secretively behind the website curtains.. but isn't this information overload, is it relevant or useful that I know your screen resolution? Actually yes, if the design is to look good across all platforms.Then later in the week, the buzz was about the Channel 4 TV programme The Family... it seems that we are becoming addicted to following the everyday, mundane antics of others, perhaps to temporarily displace our own insecurities or affirm our beliefs, a human activity which has many cultural and historical precedents...The popular media holds a mirror up to the modern world and then loudly announces that your offspring are obese, poorly educated or badly behaved, you can't cook and you eat for three, your dress sense is lacking, you look older than your years, your house is filthy or your interior decoration shows little sense of style or taste, you're really quite an ignorant/prejudiced/lazy person - but we can easily fix these problems by sending you to a jungle, island, camp, clinic or therapist, give you some advice on how to live better or be good - and then we can sit back and watch the transformation from the safe distance of the sofa...If you have any aspirations to be a star then there's a chance at playing the fame game too, if you don't mind mild humiliation as a down payment.... These programmes appear to masqurerade as social education (or is that info-tainment) but any empathy or understanding is underplayed for the sake of easy entertainment. Although genuine achievement and talent are admired, and the shock factor can change people's habits, it is the lapses or falls from grace that get people really talking...All of which has led me to think, isn't a website or blog another form of putting one's opinions or ideas up for the public gaze, a vulture culture, watching and circling from above, then picking at any morsels of information, good or bad... Artists require an audience and the internet seemed perfect for a while, but with art it's always about the context.. and residing here in the hinterland it's beginning to look quite ugly in the city... it's time to ditch the tv set, unplug the modem, switch off the mobile and go and do something less boring instead...