Installation View: Keep Him/Dump Him, 2018, Flora Wilds, Self-Surveillance: I sit and watch myself and call it work, 2016-17, Madeline Zappala, Computer Secrets, 2019, Madeline Zappala, Consensual Listening, 2019, Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe, The Experiential Industry, 2017, Furen Dai
Installation View: Stories, 2018-19 (stop-motion animation), Frankie Symonds, Keep Him/Dump Him, Flora Wilds, Consensual Listening, 2019, Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe @ Flux Factory
Gimme Your Likes, 2018, Flora Wilds and Remnants from an interactive Instagram performance with Gimme Your Likes, 2019, Flora Wilds
Nori's Phone Case, I'm my own French Girl, Danny's Selfie, 2018, Jamieson Edson
The Experiential Industry, 2017, Furen Dai
Installation View: Self-Surveillance: I sit and watch myself and call it work, 2016-17, Madeline Zappala, Computer Secrets, 2019, Madeline Zappala, detail of Keep Him/Dump Him, 2018, Flora Wilds
Wearable Instagram, 2019, Flora Wilds
Certifying Reality™ is an exhibition of six artists: Furen Dai, Jamieson Edson, Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe, Frankie Symonds, Flora Wilds and Madeline Zappala, contemplating the blurred line between IRL and URL - our mediated realities (i.e. the social media gaze) and screen as lens (but not necessarily medium). Works ranging from sculpture to video, examine notions surrounding self-mythology, data-curation and the ever-expanding digital archive. Themes include: surveillance, the quotidian, personal narrative and intimacy (digital and queer). Certifying Reality™ responds to our current space of suffocation by the over-everything (information, stimulation, communication), what Baudrillard calls ‘hyper-prescence’.
Certifying Reality™ engages with interventionist experimentation, subversion and illusion of medium, with work by artists who create new actualities by sourcing material from their personal archives: Zappala's text poems, Edson's photos, Symond's stills, Wilds’ posts and Fitzgerald Bledsoe’s recordings to constructed material that mimics and questions the absurdity of our existing worlds: Dai's experiential industry and Fitzgerald Bledsoe’s intermingling of recordings of performance and IRL experience. These artists question our contemporary notions of simulation, creation and appropriation, and underscore the artifice of our cyborg existence.
Certifying Reality™ engages with interventionist experimentation, subversion and illusion of medium, with work by artists who create new actualities by sourcing material from their personal archives: Zappala's text poems, Edson's photos, Symond's stills, Wilds’ posts and Fitzgerald Bledsoe’s recordings to constructed material that mimics and questions the absurdity of our existing worlds: Dai's experiential industry and Fitzgerald Bledsoe’s intermingling of recordings of performance and IRL experience. These artists question our contemporary notions of simulation, creation and appropriation, and underscore the artifice of our cyborg existence.
**Certifying Reality was the capstone project for my residency at Flux Factory; I specifically chose artists who were influencing my work, whether via direct collaboration, IRL discussion and online absorption. This show is a testament to the artists who have been challenging my ideas surrounding surveillance capitalism and the erosion between the physical and the online. Certifying Reality investigates how URL and IRL artist networks are affecting how we make work in the digital age.
CERTIFYING REALITY
Curated by Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe
Inventory List (clockwise from left)
Curated by Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe
Inventory List (clockwise from left)
- Nori’s phone Case, 2018, documented manipulation, inkjet print on Platine Fiber Rag, Jamieson Edson
- I’m my own French Girl, 2018, documented manipulation, inkjet print on Platine Fiber Rag, Jamieson Edson
- Danny’s Selfie, 2018, documented manipulation, inkjet print on Platine Fiber Rag, Jamieson Edson
- Messaging, 2018, hardbound book, paper, acetate, Madeline Zappala
- Wearable Instagram, 2019, photo, thread, coat, Flora Wilds
- Stories, 2018-19, stop-motion animation videos (completely produced on phone), Frankie Symonds
- Keep Him/Dump Him, 2018, photo, chain, found purses, Flora Wilds
- Gimme Your Likes, 2018, photo, stuffed hearts made from recycled clothing, Flora Wilds
- Self-Surveillance: I sit and watch myself and call it work, 2016-17, archival inkjet prints, Madeline Zappala
- Computer Secrets, 2019, collage, paper, magnets and steel, Madeline Zappala
- Consensual Listening, 2019, chairs, cassette players, headphones, wood and tapes (all translated from voice memos on phone), Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe
- The Experiential Industry, 2017, bamboo, wire, fabric, plant, monitor and video, Furen Dai