1/2 time, 2023

Link to a video of Miss you faces [digitized] | See more photos

How does digital connection inhibit closeness? Does the facade of "constantly in touch" actually translate? In what ways has the loneliness crisis been created by our parasocial relationships with technology?

Via an installation of four groups of work, I hoped to inspire reflection in the audience, not knowing the answer to these questions myself. The show, running for two months in the Baron Gallery in Oberlin, Ohio, carried a diverse range of work, and I was proud to show my work alongside ten other artists. 

The first work, Miss you faces [1-6], served as the initial creative burst of the group; photographs of friends, taken digitally and on 35mm, which were digitally altered via Photoshop to be halftone. This meant that it was created out of dots--after this process, they were physically created; a laser cutter machine individually cut thousands of holes, taking over 36 hours of cutting time. The image you see is purely cut black paper over aluminum foil. This inkless approach, along with the pixelization of my friends, was a reflection on what it means that I still could see them over my computer, pixelated and glitchy in the same way as they were when printed. The black paper was placed over aluminum foil to create a textured shining effect.

The next work, Miss you faces [digitized], was a 10-minute video installation shown on a Santex Mini screen. Many of the same images from [1-6] were repurposed, ran through an AI-powered animating software and then further edited and manipulated via iMovie and Adobe Premiere. Fascinated by the rising chatter about AI and it's potential to change (allegedly) everything, I sought to apply it to my work in an effort to further disturb the viewer via the uncomfortable manipulation of friendship. I wonder, as time goes on, to what extent A.I. responses to email, texts, and calls will supplant real friendship; will any interaction online be confirmed to be human-to-human?

Miss you faces [boxed] marked the last of the Miss you faces series, culminating in the warping of friendship being something freely given and taken. The commodification of friendship, with new chatbots and fake social media apps full of robots that respond to you, raise countless questions about the point of friendship. Is it really just what you can give and take? I sought to explore this via a laser cut and mounted rubber stamp that I created with a portrait of Evie White. A found box contained the miniature prints, while the stamp was available, and those who visited the show were encouraged to take copies of the print with them. The print was spotted in countless windows and houses following the opening of the show, which I felt was completing the mission of the prints.

The last of the work, Something happen [1-3], dissects similar themes despite a drastic change of subjest matter. The three prints are found images of car crashes (in which nobody died) that were digitally altered--this was the beginning of a rapid change of opinion on the purpose of photography for me. Almost any person can take a crystal clear picture with the phone in their pocket; these days, it's often more interesting to find a mangled, pixelated, mess-of-color-photograph. I attempted to change the photos while leaving the subject matter legible. Inkjet printed, the prints lie below a laser cut foil of white paper. The dots you see are the inkjet print showing through cut holes. Born out of a desire to escape small town life, Something happen was my selfish cry for literally anything to happen. Boredom is a dangerous thing. It's times like that when I most miss my friends.

I am grateful to those who allowed me to use their likeness in the completion of this installation.

Thank you:

Evie White

Tyler Jester

Madeleine Dawson

Mariana Kovalik-Silva

Luca Johnson

Meg Bigelow

Clara O'Connell

Caitlyn Hancock