I am Elsewhere
0.65x0.65x0.15m Stainless Steel, Perspex, Perspex Mirror, Difraction Grating Film, Computer Manipulated Image Exposed on Colour Separation Film, Aluminium Letters

I am Subject, I am Object
0.65x0.65x0.15m Stainless Steel, Perspex, Perspex Mirror, Difraction Grating Film, Computer Manipulated Image Exposed on Colour Separation Film, Aluminium Letters.

STATEMENT:
Technology has changed both the way we live and the way we see. The exponential rise in computer sales and internet subscriptions in just 4 years has altered the way we collate and relate to information and images. HTML tags, invisible to many, visible to some, present to all, has become the international language, the Esperanto for the new millennium. Computers are best in archiving, manipulating and distorting information. A new reality has arrived. This reality is in many ways seen as more real than the real. A good, nature photograph seems in many respects less real than a computer generated image of the place.

No one now has a complete social presence unless his/hers particulars are archived in some network of machines. Birth certificates, credit cards, passports, identity cards, violations etc are all archived forming the sign of what a person 'is¹. A dictionary definition composed of zeros and ones describing a particular person¹s profile.

The internet has the possibility in truly globalizing the world. The sense of place, already reassessed by the cinema, television and video technologies, and the sense of presence already reassessed by the wireless and telephony are both now merging and finding a new form in the digital world of cyberspace. The internet has become a common space for all. A place, if you like, where presence is as immediate, as varied, as unpredictable, as rich and as interactive as reality. A place where action and reaction is its basis of being.

The two artworks I am presenting in TTLG investigate these themes in relation to the perception of the new digital 'person¹. The artworks are constructed of mirror stainless steel, perspex, perspex mirror, diffraction grating film, computer manipulated image exposed on colour separation film and aluminium text.

The stainless steel frame encloses the artwork in its very defined boundary, like a monitor displaying images except the images are static and it is the movement of the viewer that produces the variations and motions. The mirror pyramids on the back reflect fragments of the artwork¹s environment dispersing them and altering their relationships. The computer manipulated face is looking at the viewer, the shadows are filled with text. In the case of ŒI am Subject, I am Object¹, the birth certificate of the person portrayed, my daughter, is reproduced tens of times illustrating the idea of birth registrations, the idea that birth is not only an archived event but also, the birth certificate remains the principal document for the authentification of a person¹s existence. In the case of ŒI am elsewhere¹, a photograph of myself is used and the text superimposed on it comes from the html coding of my home page on the internet. The string of html tags roll across, becoming visible to all taking over and abstracting the image and relating the real with the virtual, the private to the public.