JOSH ON
(New Zealand, 1972)


TheyRule.net, 2004
internet site
Courtesy the artist







Josh On is a freelance designer, activist and the creator of the web project TheyRule which is an interactive mapping system that visualizes the interconnections between the board members of the most powerful companies in the United States of America. The web site allows users to browse through a series of maps that function as directories to companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Microsoft. A reduced design characterizes these diagrams. CEOs are represented as male or female icons that are parts of a financial, political or institutional power system linked to others. Depending on the number of boards they sit on, the CEOs weight increases proportionally. TheyRule maps out an economic network that documents the connections between single individuals in their different corporate functions revealing the hidden accumulation of power, influence and control by a small elite. If it is true that competition should be the governing principle of a free market economy: so, the concentration of economic influence in the hands of a few jeopardizes its optimal functioning.


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