IT’S NOT ME, IT’S MY IMAGE

In this digital era, nearly every facet of our lives interacts with distortion in some sense. From our artistic expectations to personal self-image, the lines of authenticity become blurred as we grow increasingly comfortable with the many faces we upload.

One’s presence on the Internet is merely a distortion—noise extending away from its source until the signal is too faint to read, lost to its own infinite code. It is comforting to tell ourselves that we know what reality is, and that we can move through it reliably. That we can be seen as we see ourselves if we communicate carefully enough. But it is liberating to surrender—to admit that we cannot control how we exist digitally, nor who we are in a terrain that owns our likeness. For the first time we have the power to release the pieces of ourselves we’ve held together, and embrace the beauty in not knowing where they’ll land. Now is the dawn of Web 3.0.

But in this landscape of reproduction, it is not only pixels that become corrupted. How do we navigate a space of disembodiment while maintaining our individual autonomy? How are we understood when our clicks are taken for endorsements? This new wave of faux-media challenges both approaches, proclaiming: I am not anonymous, nor am I data. I am myself, and online I am not. Is it possible to think freely when growing up in a hivemind?

All proceeds from the exhibit benefitted Children’s Art Guild, (https://www.childrensartsguild.org), a New York City based organization determined to help children transcend expectations and disadvantages in order to explore and develop their creativity and artistic drives through education.

SPRING 2019 PARTICIPANTS

Lead Coach: Laura Arike

Interns: Traci Abbott, Devan Armeni, Aaron Cohen, and Jordan Tacker

Showing Artists:

Diego Herrera

Chance Al-Hajji

Christine Stoddard

Eli Wilding

Miette Kringen

Jordan Tracker

Hannah Mayo

Sadie Sanders

Caronline Cramer

Michael Lee

Tara Bassi

Kati Kirsch

Luiza Goncalves

D-Jai Kosiyabong

Ana Lyons

Aaron Cohen

Samuel Herrera

Grace Hoffman