In the Machine. These rapid days we are always in the machine. Telephones. Planes. Computers. Cameras. Magazines. Print shops. Human life is the locus on which machinery sits; the object on which machinery operates. We are modified. Acted on. Augmented. We are now all RoboCop; metal clad hardbodies ripping through the world, invincible. We create a new world, an extended reality. We are beasts making a world fit for gods.
This exhibit rides the transition between modern and postmodern “modes” of technological art. Consider the camera; the perfect modernist art machine. The camera thinks that math is art. The camera scrubs aesthetic grime away and presents the world’s mechanics as an art object.
The VR headset is the opposite of the camera. The camera points at the world; the Oculus occludes it. The camera captures the world as system; the VR headset creates a world as impulse. The VR headset is the postmodern foil to the camera; it shows the world living inside of us. A Mirror of Erised into which we stare enticed.
Appolonian camera, Dionysian headset - ideal machines fistfighting in heaven.
In the Machine is a joint exhibition presented by Austin Stanbury, Ines Said, Chelsea Cantrell, and Aaron Karlson. Through cyanotype, collage, 3D models, and extended reality applications, we explore what machines have done to us.
