In the 1960s, Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan described the idea of a “global village” fueled by media hyperconnectivity.
While the term sounds utopic, McLuhan’s words were a cautionary tale about the consequences of rapidly connecting people of wide-ranging experiences and ideologies without context or filters.
McLuhan referred to this as the “retribalization” of humanity — a return to isolationism and warring among groups.
The blessing and curse of technology forms the central conceit of “I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen,” now on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Associate curator Alison Hearst assembled nearly 70 works for the exhibition by 50 artists that span 1969 to the present. The works are arranged according to nine thematic sections.
Hearst’s idea for this show came together during the summer of 2020, when the majority of the world was driven toward screens: working, educating, socializing and otherwise absorbing content through digital means.
“The pandemic shaped a lot of my thinking in terms of the exhibition’s main themes, particularly the overarching theme that situates the screen as the main axis point of the exhibition and the art I included,” explains Hearst. “Like many, most of my interactions with people and art had become mediated by a screen during the pandemic, and that made me want to specifically consider art using screens as tools and subjects.”
“I’ll Be Your Mirror,” opens with a photo collage of 1,200 images by Penelope Umbrico. Culled from Flickr, Umbrico’s work addresses the way social media has brought about the oversharing and idealization of “personal,” yet ubiquitous, moments. It’s a fact made even more prescient given that the collage itself is prime social media/selfie fodder.
“Liminal Space,” the first thematic section, contains the greatest concentration of early screen-based works. During the 1960s and ‘70s, artists adopted video, computers, robotics and telecommunications equipment as generative tools or displayable objects in and of themselves.
Two pieces by pioneering video artist Nam June Paik are included, as is a computer-based project by Andy Warhol created in conjunction with Commodore International.
A number of works are interactive, and some employ augmented reality. Huntrezz Janos’ Infilteriterations includes Instagram filters that turn users into mythical techno-creatures, suggesting an alternate reality in which we can transcend the human body, while commenting on the degrees to which people will filter their actual bodies for the sake of social media personas. Kristin Lucas’ FlARmingos allows visitors to enter into an AI-generated world populated by a charismatic array of blocky, animated flamingos, a species whose natural habitat is threatened by environmental neglect.
Other artists address issues such as connectivity, surveillance and how we inadvertently weaponize technology against ourselves.
Wickerham & Lomax’s Lovers Interfacing Between Home and the Moon details a collaborative exchange that occurred between the artists during the pandemic. The collage was created by each artist continuously overlaying a series of 3D-modeled objects overtop a photograph of a couple, resulting in a tender exploration of the digital shorthand that develops within a relationship separated by time and space.
Thousand Little Brothers v8 is a self-surveillance project by Hasan Elahi consisting of more than 30,000 photographs. The artist started the project in 2002 after being suspected of terrorism due to his travels and Arab-sounding name. For 12 years, Elahi documented his life through images and GPS coordinates and submitted the information to the FBI.
The comically haunting piece My Generation by Eva and Franco Mattesfeatures a smashed desktop computer laying on the floor. YouTube clips of young gamers dissolving into fits of rage while playing the game World of Warcraft flash across the monitor’s screen. Players punch their screens, throw their gaming devices, scream expletives, and — in one extreme case — tear off their clothes and hurl themselves across the room.
Arthur Jafa’s award-winning film The White Album and Molly Soda’s webcam choir video “Me Singing Stay by Rhianna,” close out the exhibition. Composed of both found and original footage, Jafa’s film is an intensely devastating exploration of contemporary whiteness, interspersing CCTV and YouTube clips with lovingly captured portraits of white people with whom Jafa — a black man — has close relationships. It is compassion, rage, beauty and virulence rolled into one.
Soda’s work features individual YouTube videos of 42 people singing the song “Stay” by Rhianna, collaged into a single piece. Each person pops into view with the standard greeting of “hey guys, welcome to my channel,” before the entirety launches into a slightly off-kilter but heartfelt rendition of the song. Upon finishing, they disappear one by one from the screen until a solitary individual remains, reminding us to like, subscribe and follow her across various social media platforms.
Soda’s video provides a glimmer of hope that, perhaps, even for a moment, technology has the potential to find a common ground, to be a positive force. However, as “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” points out, the line between unification and tribalization is as thin as a screen.
Details
“I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen,” runs through April 30 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St, Fort Worth. Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit themodern.org or call 817.738.9215.
