Copy and Paste: The Art of Reproduction in a Digital Age

“And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things ... The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception...” Victor Shlovksy, Art as Technique

This exhibition is intended to create a dialogue about how we view, receive and understand art works when they are mediated through the internet. The proliferation of images that the internet provides inevitably changes the way we approach art – whether it diminishes the ‘aura’ of the art object, democratizes art access, or provides a distorted reading of the image – the reproduction of art within the virtual sphere poses fundamental questions about the ways in which we perceive art in contemporary culture. Does the work maintain its affect when situated in a context bombarded with external text and advertising? If the function of art is to prolong perception and allow for a process of defamiliarization – to make us look at the world anew – does the sheer multiplicity and proliferation of imagery on the internet interrupt and diminish this process? In the end this exhibition is meant to stop the viewer in their tracks and reawaken them to the ways in which digital reproduction and virtual access changes our relationship to the ‘art object,’ – informing the way we read the image and perceive its form.

The exhibition will consist of the following images (plus a few more) in the form of light-boxes – all in various sizes.