The Internet is a Cultural Object, group exhibition, March 2015, Brunswick Street Gallery.
curated by Miriam Arbus. Exhibiting artists include: Claire Virgona Kate Geck Sarah Rhiannon Tansy Jana McNally Tessy King and Niamh Minogue Jen Fullerton Wyatt Knowles Heidi Stevens Courtney Blackney Alun Rhys Jones Nigel Tan with Kevin Leong and Dylan Ang S. J. de Rosa Cate Gowers BK Mark Payne Damien Orriss Siobhan Dodds Melissa Martin Maddy Anderson Emily Vuong Eugene Mott Richie Cyngler Tunni Kraus, Brendan Bensky and Ronch Willner Ree Hegh Pierre Proske Scott Anderson Maeve Holmes
The internet creates an unparalleled encompassing experience. A mirage of democratic instant access to information. We crave this instant gratification: a like, a comment, a post - proving to ourselves that what we create is validity. The Internet is a Cultural Object. If our entire population suddenly ceased to exist in some major apocalyptic manner, and the only remnant to remain was a device containing the internet, what would the people of the future think of us, as they attempted to discover who and what we all were, all by looking through the internet exactly as it is today (thought provoking from Kate Geck). The internet has become an expectation and a necessity. We cannot seem to tolerate lengthy periods of time without the immediacy of information - it has become second nature. Virtual object, capital, and existence has dissolved from artificial into real, and tangible. In this exhibition, we seek to investigate conceptions of art practice, formalised aesthetics, and identity relationships with(in) technology. We additionally hope to question the role of autonomy, ubiquity, and how to engage critique within this ostensible collective that is the internet. How does our internet life alter social relations and raise questions about identity, privacy, and desire? What are our (false) expectations and assumptions in regards to transparency, digital capital, accessibility, and the ownership of information. Living within in the Internet complicates and continuously expands comprehensions. There are so many questions: What are our new visual metaphors for self and subjecthood? Where is the activism? How does information loop and translate between interfaces and communicators? How does one own online digital data content and what does this ownership signify? How does the colour palette of a contemporary painter encompass their personal screen time? What happens when data is discarded and then reused? When does the Internet act as an independent agent? Who do see on google street view? What is intimacy? We are constantly being during the internet, not before, after or without. The Internet is a Cultural Object investigates aesthetic formalisms, and socialised action, while considering contemporary arts practice as framed within internet as zeitgeist.