Extra Credit Event 1

EXTRA CREDIT EVENT 1

I was unable to attend the opening night of Delete Me due to a class conflict so I instead attended the following day but was not able to meet with any of the artists. I saw a few of the artists in the gallery however they were with DMA professors in what I assume to be critiques. The Delete Me show was a showcase for recent work of the DMA MFA students. The work covered a large variety of mediums and topics.

The work I will focus on was Kate Hollenbach’s USER_IS_PRESENT. Kate is my TA for my Network Media class this quarter. She has shown and discussed a number of her pieces in our class so I was excited to see her piece in the show. Kates work tends to focus on the mobile phone and how we relate to our devices.

Her piece USER_IS_PRESENT was no different, it also stemmed from her interest in our relationships with our mobile phones. The piece consisted of three screens depicting what appeared to be layered views of an iPhone screen - our view and one of the phone itself. One view being the view of what Kate can see of her phone and the other being what the phone see’s back of her. In her statement about the work Kate describes it as “the experience of a place and time cannot be complete in just the physical or virtual world alone: presence is now required in both.” There was a variety of imagery from emails to videos of her face walking or sitting in class.

I really enjoyed this piece. I think it is a very accurate depiction of how much our devices have encompassed and taken control over our lives. You could view practically Kate's whole week in a condensed period of time and space because her phone was there to experience the whole thing. It also shows how much of her focus is on her device throughout the day because a majority of the imagery was her looking at the screen.

I also think this fits impeccably with the rest of Kates work and is recognizable as her style of work which I think is very important. I also think the piece was relatable to anyone even if you did not previously know Kate, her work or story. I am not sure why there were three screens however I think aesthetically it was a good choice.

Below are a number of photos of me at the gallery.