Your Zoom Background Can Do More Than Just Entertain
Virtual videoconference backgrounds are improving morale and helping those newly WFH accomplish legitimate business objectives.
An R/GA employee’s starship Enterprise Zoom wallpaper
Source: R/GA
Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field was a breakthrough for the artist Yayoi Kusama. The 1965 installation was, as its name suggests, a room whose walls were mirrors and which was filled with dozens of somewhat phallic stuffed protuberances, all white with red polka dots. Comparing herself to Alice in Wonderland, Kusama declared, “I ... have opened up a world of fantasy and freedom.”
Last week, Hillary Lannan, who works in talent acquisition in San Francisco, opened up her own world of fantasy and freedom when she selected an image of Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field as her Zoom virtual background, the image automatically displayed behind her in the now-ubiquitous videoconferencing application from the San Jose, Calif.-based Zoom Video Communications. She didn’t stop there: Lannan donned a matching red shirt, red lipstick, and a red Louise Brooks wig to evoke a slightly glitchy image of Kusama herself. Her effort was not a mere creative outlet in a pandemic-driven work-from-home culture; it was an entry in a competition organized by her employer, the San Francisco office of R/GA, a global agency that develops campaigns for clients such as Nike, Lego, and Shiseido.