Friendster or Foester? Conspiracy Art of Mark Lombardi

Village Voice piece on the "conspiracy art" of Mark Lombardi — and what it tells us about real-world and virtual-world social networks:

Much is being made lately of the FBI's phone call to the Whitney Museum in the immediate aftermath of the 9-11 attacks requesting access to Mark Lombardi's drawing BCCI, ICIC & FAB (1996-2000). This piece, the last work the artist made before he was found dead in his studio in March 2000, an apparent suicide at age 49, represents the tangled web of power and influence that comprised the largest banking scandal in history—in which an impenetrable network of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, and banks-within-banks laundered billions of dollars while supporting terrorism, arms and drug trafficking, and prostitution. The names of Saddam Hussein and George H.W. Bush, among many other high- and low-profile world figures, are connected by a network of delicate, yet potently insinuating, pencil lines. The FBI agent who called was informed that the work was on view in the museum's galleries, where he was welcome to see it during it during regular museum hours. A visit to the current Mark Lombardi exhibition at the Drawing Center (35 Wooster Street, through December 18) by an affiliate of the Homeland Security Agency has also raised eyebrows in the art world.

In cyberspace, the architectural parallel to Lombardi's work is not to be found in the utilitarian, "drill-down" salt mine of the Defense Department's TIA, but in the burgeoning blackberry-bush tangle of Friendster.com. For the one or two of you who still don't know, Friendster is an online network in which members can connect to friends, as well as to friends' friends, friends' friends' friends, and so on. As a result of having 32 friends in my immediate network, I am automatically linked to a larger network of 441,710 individuals. I can search this database by gender, age, locale, and interest. Unlike some more purposeful sites, such as the business network LinkedIn, or any of the many cruising spots online, Friendster is notably open-ended. In addition to identifying oneself as looking for a "friend," or a "serious relationship," one can also present oneself as "just here to help." It is in part this indirectness that suggests a parallel to Lombardi's indeterminate fields of "influence."