THROWBACK Technology Thursday
One definition of technology–strategies employed to adapt to the material world–considers that even the most basic impulses are mitigated through culture. In that context, White Man On A Pedestal is, in fact, an investigation of technologies. Nineteenth-Century medical technologies, contemporary corporate technologies, legal technologies, material technologies, manufacturing technologies, technologies of identity–each of these impacting the outcomes of the exhibition. The resources of the Technology Department permit access to virtual spaces and supply an environment to test the conceptual gaps of linear time, by repositioning narratives into twisting loops or multi-platform fractals. For example, within the Augmented Reality of the piece, “Bebe’s Kids”, DAVE looms, then shatters into shards of the #WHITEMANINMYPOCKET with a touch of the screen; but he could just as easily be reconstituted by changing a line of code. Made and remade, resized and parsed, placed and relocated– this presents another kind of double consciousness. Ultimately, the dizzying possibility of the digital landscape mirrors the uncertainty of forms in an analog existence. The DAVES will be buried, but the residue is pixelated.