“Astroturf” by Ian Haig
Title:
- Astroturf
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Filmmaker, Video Artist, or Animator(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Artist Statement:
With so much attention these days focusing on the utopian, new age promise of new technology… whether it’s a Microsoft slogan on a billboard, an editorial in a computer trade mag or an artists’ statement in an electronic art show catalogue, the rhetoric can often read the same: New and emerging technologies are opening the door to limitless possibilities…I am somewhat suspicious of the glowing pronouncements concerning the impact of technology on our lives, in response my work deals with themes of technological dystopia, devolution and mutation – a world of malfunctioning Frankensteinian machines, grotesque human bodies and asocial computer nerds…and where technology is simply a more efficient means of going backwards… Much of my work is concerned with redefining the aesthetic in contemporary computer graphics, looking towards the realms of Pop art, and comic culture, while attempting to bridge the ever increasing gap between the world of technology, art and popular culture…
