Post-Internet: Ways of Looking

I’ll never forget sitting in a college English class on postmodernism in the fall of 2011, watching as the professor tried to explain the term to the class. After a few minutes, she hit upon an idea: She told us that for the first time, it seemed she was teaching a class that had been born so far into the postmodern era, that we took the tenants of it for granted. Because of this, we did not have difficulty understanding what postmodernism was, but rather why it was important enough to call attention to it at all.

The post-internet seems like one of those things that could, very quickly, become impossible to imagine a world without. Most of the images I have ever seen have probably been through the filter of a screen. Even my way of looking has been conditioned by this phenomenon. I look and I look and I look until my eyes ache and I can no longer clearly see the images and words on the screen, and then I look some more, squinting and searching for brightness.

The screen serves as a membrane, that separates object from image but still allows crossover between the two.  

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with different installation methods for my paintings and drawings. For example, instead of building large wooden cradle platforms for my paintings, which emphasize their object-status through their weight and size, I’ve been leaving the metal sheets without any kind of cradle and installing them flush against the wall. Installed in this way, the sharp, thin, metallic, shining paintings read as screens. I’ve never been particularly interested in making work through electronic or internet based means, but I am interested in pursuing this reference to the screen, and the reference to the ways of looking which have endemically developed as a result of the internet and the associated cell phone, tablet, and computer technologies.