I asked myself about what are Contemporary ways of expressing yourself in a social media epoch? How do we see personality today in a private and public way? Did the portrait change? What are the ways of combining digital and analogue in art, abstract and figurative?
George Orwell in 1984 describing the world of full control and people partially built in a way of supporting this absurd. But what is more interesting, people brainwashed from childhood so they would not notice what are the bigger goal and purpose stands behind. Referring to public life on Facebook, Tweeter and Instagram is it an instrument not only for sale but also for control and influence?
Molly Soda a girl from America who presented online reality “on the wall”. She lives her life make fun of herself and openly shares all information with the public.
Molly Soda – Don’t Be So Sensitive, 2016. C-Type print on aluminium 55.2 x 31 cm (21 3/4 x 12 1/4 in); Unique Courtesy: The Artist & Annka Kultys Gallery At: https://www.widewalls.ch/molly-soda-interview/ (Accessed on 23.08.19)
Basically, now everyone can be an artist just he needs to have an Instagram account. But what we see every day – is it what we want to be? We are no longer protected from ignorance and rudeness in social media. One scroll down brings automatic (not really automatic, someone bans some posts) updates of all sort of information from flowery underwear to Trump. Here, drawing to analogy to the Museum or Gallery exhibition, is it so much different to images on Instagram? At the end people, who we not always know, select, put filters, blocks or promote some “visual ideas” for us. As a final destination average user sees during his breakfast time on his iPhone sudden image of a provocative face in a pink background. The question here do we want and do we need to see what we see?
M. Soda opens her private life and brings it out for everyone. Is it good or bad – different people different opinions but indeed this is an example of a change we facing at the moment. Visual images turn from brushstrokes of the still-life at Museum to the selfies of unshaved young girls printed and exposing at the same Museum.
Amalia Ulman presented a performance in Instagram which represented in her book "Excellences & Perfections". The artist plays the role of a young girl building a career on the Internet and taking various desperate steps for this. Self-identity in the online world is the main attention of the artist. It's no secret that the social space brings depression and disappointment to regular users, since comparing our lives with the life of Instagram posts, we still lacking several million Euros for a picture on a yacht with a glass of Crystal.
“Excellencies & Perfections #10” (2018) Image Courtesy ©Amalia Ulman & Arcadia Missa, London. At: https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/39375/1/amalia-ulman-2014-instagram-hoax-predicted-the-way-we-use-social-media (Accessed on 27.08.19)
Such a game really attracts people and excites them, but do the forgery and hidden context become obvious to everyone? Is an unattractive hairy girl pleasing to the eye? And how will the daughter of my friend behave next time in front of the camera after such an example?
To create a strong message today you don’t need to paint with oil on the canvas. Canvas today can be an Internet space and colours you can express with a simple Instagram filter. Ulman, for instance, doesn’t draw practically but she draws in an imaginary world – conceptual art from the time of Joseph Kosuth blooms more and more and moves into digital space.
Another artist Cory Arcangel using technology and computer as a tool even without any attempt to move the final piece in the real world. Super Mario Clouds – 2002 a vivid interpretation of reality which exists on display. Exhibiting images on screens allow the image to be in an action. And since the passage of time is best perceived in motion, such an exposure method allows emphasizing it the best way. If we compare Arcangel with Ulman, he works more with technology and builds digital objects in virtuality, while Amalia focuses on the state of man as a whole in the digital world. Which one more effective? Depends on which questions you want to raise?
Surveillance Camera, Ai Weiwei (2010) marble [Sculpture] At: https://www.artrabbit.com/events/ai-weiwei-5 (Accessed on 29.08.19)
Ai Weiwei, for example, quite direct and bold put concrete cameras in a gallery space. He is not about the virtual world but about control which is behind this object. If this camera would be shown on display it would not work as it can be switched off next moment. But to present camera in concrete turns this object into something stable, heavy, rough…
Alexandra Gorczynski works with digital collages.
Alexandra Gorczynski, Valley et Honey Water, 2016 © Alexandra Gorczynski [Drawing] At: http://www.observatoire-art-contemporain.com/revue_decryptage/tendance_a_suivre.php?langue=en&id=20120993 (Accessed on 29.08.19)
Mixing video, old oil paintings and own drafts she exhibits the original works with a projection or print pieces for a gallery wall. In her works, I found my own technique...
Here strange thought came to my mind – I just need to create more variation with the same concept. In other words, if I create only one work even though it will be good, no one would take me serious as only series of work, the repeated sets of the same elements in my work can prove that my head works and I'm really trying to say something. The difference between Alexandra and me is that she built a series of works devoted to one problem performed in the same recognizable style. And I?
An amazing combination of the objective and the abstract in the works of Nancy Baker Cahill. MARGIN OF ERROR AT THE SALTON SEA, DESERT X 2019, Site-specific, augmented reality drawing by Nancy Baker Cahill, accessible on site via the free 4th Wall app
What only stops me, or rather, what I am missing is direct skill with my hands. Pressing the keyboard with your fingertips and turning the wheel on the mouse does not give such pleasure as kneading paint on a canvas and sculpting emotion from it.
Bibliography and references
1. Ryan Duffy (2018) Interview: Molly Soda In: Digital Objects [online] At: https://medium.com/digital-objects/interview-molly-soda-126b0e00b3a8 (Accessed on 23.08.19)
2. Amalia Ulman, Prestel Excellences and Perfections [online] At: https://prestelpublishing.randomhouse.de/book/Excellences-and-Perfections/Prestel/e535939.rhd (Accessed on 27.08.19)
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