Technology
Becomes Them, on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery October 30 – November 21, 2015
Welcome
to the neo-human era of art, on view in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery. For many,
the latest suite of smart phones changes the way culture is experienced and
remembered. Each artist in Technology
Becomes Them creates work on a new aesthetic path where technology and
humanity meet. The contemporary artists in this show employ traditional
techniques and forms to explore the new fabric of reality, woven with
ubiquitous technology and ever present internet communication.
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Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern creates
hand-pulled prints reminiscent of Baroque wallpaper. Her contemporary color
play and close cropped compositions are the first aesthetic vehicles grounding
her work in contemporary visual vocabulary. Curious viewers are rewarded to
discover the hidden gestures of cherubs and courtly personages and the banality
of their focus: the figures are lost in their smartphones, tablets and laptops.
While the figures refer vaguely to a distant time and place, the collision with
technology reflects our own inane present-day obsessions.
Michael Burris Johnson mediates
painterly observations of nature using the grid. The white rose bush in Patience
is simplified into millions of tiny squares. While the imposed structure alienates
the viewer from nature, this process also alleviates the strain of mimesis. The
juxtaposed colors create a unity of lightly contrasting squares of color data.
Standing in front of the work, the viewer is struck first by Johnson’s
technique, and next by their own instinct to interpret beauty from a patchwork
of color.
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| Michael Burris Johnson, "Patience", Oil on canvas, 42x84", 2015. Archival prints available for $80 |
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| Pat Lay, "54AAA0254C," Collaged digital scroll, inkjet printed on Japanese kozo paper, Tyvek backing, gold paint, 96x48", 2015, $6,500 |
Pat Lay
refers to patterned works in art history and draws out the beauty of the
computer matrix. Rather than mediating our experience, computer technology
becomes the experience itself. The large scale of Lay’s collaged digital scrolls
KB54AAA0468B and 54AAA0254C impose veneration while the pattern and shimmering color
transfix the viewer. The paradoxical impression is one of aesthetic beauty and
unknown strength- this could crush us while we are busy admiring it. The
sculpted ceramic heads or “post-human power figures” combine fired clay and
computer parts that stand eye to eye with the viewer. The implied functions and
super human strength can be intimidating or comforting, depending on how far
into the future you are willing to stare.
Judy Malloy, a pioneer
hypertext poet from the early days of computing, has devised a series of
phrases or lexias that comprise a
poem. In Paths of Memory and Painting, the viewer is asked to navigate
the poem by clicking the lexia that
attracts them. An ethereal narrative emerges based on individual decision. The resulting
form reflects the viewer’s desire for a certain path. The act of reading poetry
and choosing what portion comes next alters the traditional form and a feeling
of intimacy emerges between the viewer and the computer. We may be familiar
with hypertext links on the internet that bounce us from one article to the
next, but to do so for the purpose of art is a new experience.
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| Judy Malloy, "Paths of Memory and Painting," Hypertext literature, DHTML, 2010 |
In
each case, the artist is revealing something beautiful yet foreboding,
reminding us that the consequences of technology are only partially known to
us. What will become of the world that does not fit on a screen? Will we always
have the ability to love and share it IRL? In an age where any idea worth
sharing comes with a pre-fab hashtag, I invite you to take a look around the
gallery and admire the work of these four contemporary artists. Meanwhile, reflect
on a question; if an exhibition doesn’t Instagram well, is it worth sharing? #TechnologyBecomesThem
-
Mary
Gagler, Curator
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