Midi Onodera

FREE [Ad ID 415282960]

When I think of free, I automatically think of freedom.

The inspiration for this year’s Vidoodle project came from online classified ads. As an avid eBayer, I like to cruise through the sale items looking for long lost toys from my youth, interesting cameras and image-capturing tools. Free (Ad ID 415282960) took its’ inspiration from an ad for a free bottle of bath oil. As a response to the online “classified” world, I decided to publicize each month’s Vidoodle through an ad of my own. These ads were posted on seven well-known websites from across Canada and the US such as Craigslist, Ebay, Kijiji, etc. Each month 56 postings of the same ad were placed twice a month under the category of the inspirational classified. For the month of January, under the category of FREE, an ad was placed that consisted of a still frame of the video, URL and where possible a QR code to the mobile vidoodle site. For the FREE video, there were 109 page views with 34 returning visitors. Although the majority of visitors were from North America, there were two unique visits from Brazil and Trinidad. 11 people used the QR code to access the vidoodles site. On the Vidoodles site, there was no explanation of the project and no direct relationship to me as the artist.

Posted January 1, 2013