Trust Me, I'm on T.V.
Marvin Cone Gallery, Coe College
Cedar Rapids, IA
January 2018
ARTIST STATEMENT:
False authority breeds alternate truth. The ubiquity of digital image manipulation and the proliferation of deceptive sources have left a mark on our ability to determine visual authenticity. Through mistranslated personalized photo-objects, video, collage, and sculpture, Trust me, I’m on TV evaluates how false information is disseminated – from dubious medical advice on television to YouTube trolls barking out of the void.
The common link in nearly all public images is manipulation and digital transformation. Using techniques and technology typically employed to manipulate photographs, I break down digital images into noisy abstractions and hyperbolic distortions. These dissections obscure the source photos while releasing the potential energy of the pixels and color within them. Digital noise is a scar – a reminder of the path our images take and the history they’ve endured. A low quality video is an experienced video, displaying its scars with pride: 240 embattled pixels at the front line of a war of authenticity.
The distortion of recognizable faces is my perception of the true Dorian Grey-esque reality behind their media empires built upon deception and suspicious medical miracles. These figures are public signposts for a deeper issue in how information is disseminated in American society. Positions of power control the flow of information, and this control has the power to determine the course of history on the largest of scales, up to and including human extinction. Alternate versions of reality propagate outward until truth is no longer singular at all. The result categorizes us. We live in alternate universes of information; parallel timelines with conflicting sources.
That said, I hope to present an alternative vision of gallery space as a place for fun, humor, and trashy irony as well as a space for transformative experiences and critical discussion. Photo-objects are mistranslations of digital information for profit; the illusion of individuality, packaged and sold to us to make the mass-production feel less oppressive. But they are also clumsy, laughable, and anything but sacrosanct.
False authority breeds alternate truth. The ubiquity of digital image manipulation and the proliferation of deceptive sources have left a mark on our ability to determine visual authenticity. Through mistranslated personalized photo-objects, video, collage, and sculpture, Trust me, I’m on TV evaluates how false information is disseminated – from dubious medical advice on television to YouTube trolls barking out of the void.
The common link in nearly all public images is manipulation and digital transformation. Using techniques and technology typically employed to manipulate photographs, I break down digital images into noisy abstractions and hyperbolic distortions. These dissections obscure the source photos while releasing the potential energy of the pixels and color within them. Digital noise is a scar – a reminder of the path our images take and the history they’ve endured. A low quality video is an experienced video, displaying its scars with pride: 240 embattled pixels at the front line of a war of authenticity.
The distortion of recognizable faces is my perception of the true Dorian Grey-esque reality behind their media empires built upon deception and suspicious medical miracles. These figures are public signposts for a deeper issue in how information is disseminated in American society. Positions of power control the flow of information, and this control has the power to determine the course of history on the largest of scales, up to and including human extinction. Alternate versions of reality propagate outward until truth is no longer singular at all. The result categorizes us. We live in alternate universes of information; parallel timelines with conflicting sources.
That said, I hope to present an alternative vision of gallery space as a place for fun, humor, and trashy irony as well as a space for transformative experiences and critical discussion. Photo-objects are mistranslations of digital information for profit; the illusion of individuality, packaged and sold to us to make the mass-production feel less oppressive. But they are also clumsy, laughable, and anything but sacrosanct.
