Andrea Zapp: GoogleGaze


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Title:


    GoogleGaze

Artist(s) and People Involved:


Symposium:


Venue(s):


Medium:


    Mixed media, fabric, embroidery

Artist Statement:


    A Textile Media Triptychon through which I look at the Internet and its social networks by employing more traditional artistic styles and craft. It reflects our existence in between a physical and digital world by interweaving off- and online spaces. Snapshots from Google Earth (The Rialto Bridge in Venice/Pont Neuf in Paris) and from Second Life (Manchester’s Big Wheel on Exchange Square) were printed onto fabric, additionally embroidered and stretched onto frames. Digital networks are reflected as the contemporary way to share place and space. Consequently the ornamental tapestry renders them domestic and decorative and from a distance the transitions between the layers of stitched-out object and digital surveillance scenery seem fluid. The collages come into view as artefacts and relics of collective memory and journey, creating a nonplace and gap in space and time. In return the virtual media space is framed as the new ‘fabric of society’ with its underlying concept of authenticity appearing fictional and illusory.

    The project forms part of current experiments that I call Textile Media Narratives – new aesthetics and works in textile and installation in which I explore digital media and mapping through fabric print, image patterns, embroidery techniques and other formats of physical object and embellishment. Corporeal model replicas are manufactured that mirror digital media and networks as duplicates of identity, body and habitat. Fabric is explored as another screen, interface and second skin, whilst drawing on methodologies of Applied and Conceptual Art

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