ARTWORK DETAILS
David Aston
#Venus
Pinhole photograph and digital media on duratran transparency
33.1 H x 23.3 W x 0.1 in
2017
FURTHER DETAILS
#Venus, 2016 is a pinhole photograph of a nude in the classical style of Venus. Venus sits behind a digital layer of words describing contemporary interpretations of the word digital captured during the Tate course. The words are separated by hashtags; the metadata tags used on social media and originally used in computer programming to denote code with special meaning.
The work contains old and new world symbolism. Venus, allegorical symbol of femininity is used as a metaphor for antiquity, contrasted with contemporary, text-based digital content, creates a tension between past and present.
In 2016 I attended a 6 week evening course with the Tate Gallery entitled Art in the age of digital drift: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/course/art-age-digital-drift The course, led by curator and writer Helen Kaplinsky, explored the changing landscape for making and experiencing art in the age of increasing reliance on the digital and covered a broad spectrum of digital references.
The studies made during and in response to this course, along with a move to more digitally focused work, inspired me to undertake new research into the historical and sociological impact of digital. This research acted as a pivot point in the direction of my practice and #Venus represents this transition from historical and sociologically inspired photographic work to new work with a much wider “diachronic”s outlook; exploring and linking past, present and future possibilities.
Later works in the series (#Venus ReCAPTCHA, 2019) act as a more obvious bridge between earlier pinhole works and new research into the digital presentation of images within the google ReCAPTCHA programme used to educate google street maps AI. References taken from the Attest you are human series, 2016+.
List of words embedded into #Venus:
identity, communicate, accepting, new media, all consuming, virtual reality, speed, access to knowledge, pixels, evolution, ephemeral, print, evolving, responsibility, blue screen, access, interaction, social, censorship, language, technology, accessibility, affordable, digital trafficking, art crime, pixelation, digital asset management, virtual currencies, evolving, living, cybernetics, tele reality, memoriality, self-representation, surveillance, ephemeral, control over our lives and data, complexity theory, ether, finger, quantity, digital archaeology, autonomy, control, data, time acceleration, sociality machine, digital citizen, cybernetic serendipity, metafilla, system theory, scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.
EXHIBITIONS
2020 - Scottish Society Of Artists
https://ssa.viewingrooms.com/artworks/categories/3/9673-david-aston-venus/
2018 - The Other Art Fair London