Kim Dylla :: The Question Concerning Technology
Aunspaugh Fellowship Exhibition
Off-Grounds Gallery
Charlottesville, Virginia
May 1 - 12, 2006
As far back as 1953, the question of technology and the nature of the machine was paramount. German philosopher Martin Heidegger in his essay, “The Question Concerning Technology” states, “Technology comes to presence in the realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where alétheia, truth happens.” In my work, I seek to investigate this realm, a space between science and art. I seek to reconcile these two disciplines, often juxtaposed, so that scientific innovation comes full circle to create a new type of “haunting” or artistic presence.
Through my oil paintings, I use a medium laden with hundreds of years of human tradition to explore the visual identity of technology. The paintings are evidenced of human creation, however the imagery has an inhuman coldness, a hyperreal depiction of the manufactured, lacking narrative. It is as if the machines exist without a user, residing separately in their own distinct presence. This presence is a visual one, a push and pull of virtual space, and an interaction between light and material.
Just as technology resides in its own visual identity, so does work produced
using that technology. Because of the integration of the computer in the process
of Digital and New Media artwork, a cyborg creative force is founded in the
collaboration of man and machine, and the particular machine used in the creation
of the work leaves a specific mark upon its identity. It is through the generations
of computing equipment then, that New Media work can be subclassified, establishing
a new kind of history: a history of obsolete hardware. In my installations,
I appropriate manufactured remnants and icons of computer culture, both future
and obsolete, in a sort of enduring functionality- anthropomorphic and absurd.
In the “Cyborg Manifesto”, Donna Haraway asserts, “Our machines
are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.” My art
exists in this strange realm between human and machine, a space of cyborg
symbiosis, of technotrash and future nostalgia. As Heidegger postulates, “Because
the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon
technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that
is, on one hand, akin to the essence of technology, and, on the other, fundamentally
different from it. Such a realm is art.”
Paintings
Main Room wall 1
Enlargement of Images (L to R): "Instruction from Higher Being: Paint the Upper Right Corner Red", "This Is Not A Red Pipe"
Main Room wall 2
Enlargement of Images (L to R): "Light and Vacuum", "Light and Curve"
Back Room
Enlargement, "Specularity as Line"
Interactive Video Installations
"The Land of Obsolete Hardware: Randomly Generated Narrative"
Video Documentation Available Soon...
"iBorg"
Video Documentation (Quicktime 7)
Detail of Face, "iBorg"
Detail of Clickwheel MIDI Controllers, "iBorg"
Side View Gallery Shot, "iBorg"
Special Thanks to Janine Polak, Rachel Geller, Sylvia Strawn, Patrick Edmunds, Erin Tabolt, Eric Schmidt, Phil Hastings, Greg Humphreys, Megan Marlatt, Dean Dass, The Digital Media Lab
All Paintings are available for purchase for $1000, except for "Light and Curve". All Installations are available for purchase, Price on Request. Please Contact Me for sales information.