This paper and the works which it supports demonstrate the form and function of artistic interventions into our increasingly mediated lives as a recurring theme in my practice. I reflect and react to the inherent value and urgency of doing so within our current age of the algorithm by placing the work and underlying concepts to be in conversation with literary figures, contemporary artists, and scholars – all of whom similarly work various angles of this conceit, albeit from different perspectives and in various media. While the methods range, the heart of the work – and the state of my practice – remains the same; the red through-line is that of exploring the mutual influence of technology and society, ultimately creating attentional prosthetics to help (re)define productivity. I am working with/in/against/through technologies in my practice; our technology has charged ahead, leaving our heads and hearts lagging behind.
My interest in this thread of research and work stems from a professional unfolding in information sciences which itself led me down the complicated path of critically examining the societal impacts, ethical issues, and philosophical questions related to our modern information age. This ongoing engagement at the intersection of technology and society has shaped a positionality which seeks to neither demonize or glorify the technologies at play, but rather, as an artist, desires to help audiences reflect, resist, and redefine their own relationships to such at both the collective and individual level.
In the body of work presented as a thesis exhibition, including the intended method of engaging with this paper, I will illustrate specific gestures which point towards the greater effort: there is value and necessity in interrupting and/or subverting the role of contemporary technologies in to provide an attentional prosthetic which itself allow one to be more fully in the generosity of this moment.
