In an age where public identity is formed and exists primarily virtually, the notion of self extends beyond one's physical body to encompass avatars as an extension of the human form. One's Facebook persona is essentially an avatar of the real person it represents. With this in mind, virtual interactions present unique problems that rise from computer-mitigated relationships. In contrast to the spontaneity of physical interaction, virtual communication requires a deliberate action, which allows for a greater level of control of relationships formed and the information processed. Research suggests that this ability to acutely self-select media has given rise to hyper-self censorship. In this state of hyper-self censorship the media is given incentive to produce self-affirming, extreme, and divisive content, which serves to confirm and solidify polarizations.

The online performance character "Anna Jones" was designed to investigate the alarming propensity for divisive media on both sides of the political spectrum. The objective of this work was to highlight mainstream media's hunger to provoke hatred and fear, which is not representative of the public at large, whom have the capacity for compromise and altruism.

In 2009 Anna Jones was created to be a caricature of a Republican woman and Tea Party activist. The only picture of her was posted on Facebook and was created by morphing the faces of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Elizabeth Montgomery (of Bewitched fame) using computer-morphing software. All of her characteristics were designed to specifically appeal to the Tea Party, including her intense religiosity and strong demonstrations of patriotism. She was intended to be seen as a fake from a quick glance by the shear outlandishness of the caricature. Instead her visual affect and nature made her wildly popular. By simply posting patriotic slogans such as "God Bless America," and "Don't tread on me" Anna quickly gained 5000 Facebook "friends" and at this writing, continues to receive 30 requests a day.

A second performance caricature, Mona Del Hirst, was then conceived, and designed to be Anna's liberal counterpart by appealing to the artistic activist community. She was created with the same attention to detail as Anna and was equally well received. Mona's identity was hidden to play to the cultish love of anonymous artists such as the Brittish graffiti art phenomenon, Banksy. To further emphasize her underground status, her events were accompanied by an obscure DJ from the Berlin underground: Gombi.

On March 22nd Mona Del Hirst hosted an (actual, realtime) art opening in which she invited unsuspecting viewers-- primarily a sampling from an artistic community leaning toward the political left-- to post on the Facebook wall of Anna Jones. The participants were told that Mona Del Hirst had hacked into Anna's Facebook page and she (Mona) was offering them the opportunity to speak their minds to 5000 Tea Party members through unsuspecting spokeswoman, tea party activist Anna Jones. Going into the gallery, the participants were unaware that either Mona Del Hirst or Anna Jones were fictitious. Interestingly, the comments of the participants were more comical than mean-spirited or intentionally harmful. Given the opportunity to hurt one of their supposed political enemies, the participants instead chose to tease her a bit. Not all of the attendees were in agreement with the event. Several participants tried to shut down the experiment; one man was even ready to fist fight to stop the show. In spite of how drastically different their political views were from Anna's supposed views, the participants met her primarily with empathy and a bit of humor.

After the fake hacking, Anna Jones asked all of her Facebook friends to contact the media about the story. The idea was to see how the media would spin the harmless course of events for their own benefit. One media outlet of undisclosed political affiliation , has begun reporting on the piece. A reporter contacted Anna Jones and began asking questions about the piece. Anna responded with clues to help the reporter discover Anna's true identity.

When the reporter finally discovered the author was an art student by the name of Lace Bassett the reporter provided the perfect example of how the media uses fear and intimidation to repress freedom of expression. The reporter sent threatening emails and phone calls to the artist including; "Right now, things aren't looking good for Lace Bassett…" In addition, he called and sent many emails to her employers, personal friends, former bosses, and random contacts with equally threatening and hate filled messages in an attempt to compromise her employment, education and personal relationships. The reporter crossed the line of harmless creative expression into vindictive harassment.

The reporter and his attempt to inflict emotional and mental harm on the artist (keep in mind that this is all over a few funny and artistic posts on Facebook) are now an integral part of the project. This reporter has made himself a performer in an artwork that is a reflection of his own destructive acts.

We are entering an election season where Americans will be presented with political caricatures that represent people who have spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours developing personas to manipulate the public. These caricatures unfortunately have been designed, as both Anna Jones and Mona Del Hirst were, to appeal to the extremes and divisiveness of both parties. This polarization is manufactured by the media in an attempt to manipulate us to hated one another and in doing so sell advertising. Resist the manipulation that fuels mob mentality, the likes of which will certainly ensue in the months preceding the election.

I urge you to create a better tomorrow by thinking for yourself. You need to show empathy to your fellow man no matter what side he or she resides on.