The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) presents Bootstrap the Blank Slate by Chicago-based artist Jason Salavon on moca.org. The work is commissioned by MOCA and is part of an ongoing series of artists' projects.

Salavon has long been interested in diverse fields ranging from evolutionary biology to information technology to the physical act of mark-making. Part toy, part tool, part taxonomy, Bootstrap the Blank Slate develops visually from a singular null state then records, converts, and stores the collective actions of the participant into an ever-growing population of image-pairs.

The project can be thought of as an investigation of the flow-forward phenomenon of propagation and inheritance wrapped in the cozy, user-friendly confines of design, artistic expression, and online gizmology; a collaborative mechanism for the saturation of a style-space; or a methodology for exploring classic issues of color and form. However interpreted, the project is an interactive system for generating, reproducing, and tracking two particular types of visual objects.

Salavon's previous works have taken the form of photographic prints and video installations, but Bootstrap the Blank Slate is his first web-based work. His work has been shown in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe and is included in a number of prominent public and private collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

The project can be seen on www.moca.org/museum/digital\_gallery.php.

This project has been made possible by the generous support of The James Irvine Foundation.