Mass Ornament by Natalie Bookchin (2009)

Mass Ornament (2009) single-channel video installation
Natalie Bookchin’s new video installation, Mass Ornament, choreographs hundreds of YouTube dance videos to create an dazzling artwork that also questions contemporary isolation and connection via screens, cameras and technology.
In Mass Ornament a mass dance is constructed from hundreds of clips from YouTube of people dancing alone in their rooms.

In the essay Mass Ornament from 1929, Zigfried Kracauer argued that the synchronized movements of chorus line dancers reflected the logic of the Fordist economic system of mass production. Today, YouTube dancers, alone in their rooms performing a routine that is both extremely private and extraordinarily public, reflect a post-Fordist era. Millions of isolated spectator/workers in front of their screens move in formation and watch dancers moving in formation alone in their rooms, also in front of their screens. Yet, together, the dancers seem to make small claims for embodiment and public-ness in the face of their disappearance.
Artist website:
http://bookchin.net/projects/massornament.html
Interview with artist:
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2009/may/27/dancing-machines/