SUBPARALLEL //

Thought Forms Gallery

29th September – 13th October, 2022

 

https://bit.ly/3eRD72f

Subparallel explores the influence of the virtual world. Through artworks that represent, employ and prophesize, this collection uses new mediums and digital aesthetics to essentialize the virtual and explore its distinct visual identity. Symbolism abounds, revering forms reliant on mechanical transformation. New tools are popularized, like AI image generators which use language prompts; for artists embracing this new frontier, the medium is the subject. A foreboding sense of dystopia is balanced by hopeful exuberance, randomness and the inexplicable. Subparallel shows that the virtual can be as glorious as it is incomprehensible.

Words by Mark Chu

Featured Artists: Nathan Jokovich, Mark Chu, Comp-syn, Mikkapedia, Jessica Goehring (LA), Dion Horstmans, Richard Blackwell, James Little, Tom Blachford, Kane Alexander, Tom Adair, Howard Arkley, Adam Cullen, Felix Von Dallwitz, Taj Alexander.

 

LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.jpg investigates the relationship between human and machine and the effect of technology on image making. Using A.I. generated images from text prompts as starting points, the work has been created by splicing the text code of these works to create vertical “data-scapes” that presents the slippery and paradoxical nature of the Internet as a space.

In 2000, one of the earliest email viruses entitled ‘ILOVEYOU’, with the attachment LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs., was circulated on the Internet by a 24-year-old, university student. The Love Bug computer virus, replicating, interrupting, corrupting each machine it touched and travelled through, exploited a very human palpability for the desire for love and to be loved, even if for a split moment, through a single click. The Love Bug disrupted major national entities including the US Pentagon and British Parliament.[1]

In a Post Truth, hyper-mediated world, coupled with the social isolation posed by recent lockdowns, arguably the desire for human connection is stronger today than ever before. The digital world presents a frontier of possibilities accessible to anyone, anywhere with a device and internet connection. However, one must not forget that our Internet selves exist as complex data profiles, with every click, scroll and tap being tracked and fed back to us in one algorithmically recommended, infinite loop of images, videos, posts, advertisements and profiles. The Internet is a complex beast, but it is possible to find love on the Internet and maybe for a split second that is everything.

[1] Legacy Russell, “Flip-Mode: Machinic Mutiny & Viral Intimacies”, in Conflict in My Outlook, Perimeter Editions 075, University of Queensland, 2022.

Photographic Documentation by Tom Adair