“City Adventure” by John Colette
Title:
- City Adventure
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Medium:
- Three backlit duratrans displays
Artist Statement:
As technology proliferates it is no longer a passive network of mediums but a series of new and changing personalities with whom we each have a relationship. At the same time, new beauty emerges in these new forms, new myths mingle with the old and the individual seems to become both expanded with technological augmentation, and smaller, in the midst of the proliferation of information. I am interested in the relationship between individual subjectivity and a society based in information and media systems. At this period in history, most human experience (in cities) is mediated by information technology and mass media. For a long time people have been troubled by the idea that there is a conflict between reality and representation, however there is almost nothing left untouched by representation. The new reality is all information.
Images chosen in my work employ many levels of association as I understand them, but I hope the work appears more like an advertisement, a comic book or a billboard. We are all potential units in the demographics and generalisations of market research. We all participate in the simplified narrative structures of advertising. Still, there are other myths and narratives which are important to each of us. If these could be shared alongside the generalisations we make about ourselves as a society in the mass media, then perhaps we could get to know each other better.
