"5 faces of me", Adriene Hughes

1) Picture Spot IX: Attraction14 - Maharajah Jungle Trek, 2005, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Sarina Khan-Reddy
2) Picture Spot XI: Attraction 13 - Kali River Rapids Ride, 2005, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Sarina Khan-Reddy

Justin Beckman "Wall from the Inside/Out"

List of Participants

Adriene Hughes
Dustin Williams
James Nadeau
Sarina Khan-Reddy
Justin Beckman
Matt Gamber

Fresh Produce presents:
Kate Lee Gartside

Mediate Me
Curated by
James Nadeau

December 15, 2006 - January 27, 2007

December 15 Opening Reception:
6:00 pm :: Gallery Talk
5:00-8:00 pm :: Reception

“Human beings are essentially informational patterns rather than bodily presences. If a technology can replicate the pattern, it has captured all that really matters in a human being.”
Hans Moravec Mind Children

Technology has come to consume our existence as first world human beings. It is almost impossible to imagine a lifestyle that does not involve interacting with technology in some form or manner. Technology has come to shape us as users as much as we, the makers, have transformed technology. Moravec’s quote above is grounded in the notion of the mind/body duality birthed in the enlightenment, implying that the mind is eternal and distinct from the body thus allowing us to distill it down to an “informational pattern.” Almost twenty years on from his writing we now know that human-technological relations are both more fluid and far more complex than Moravec would have believed.

The question is: how is technology changing the way we view ourselves? Am I distinct from my myspace profile? Is it me, a reflection of me, or something that advertises me? Perhaps it is all of the above? How can we, as artists, use this technology to rethink the self-portrait? A photograph has become something more, as have videos. Technology has made these forms something else. They are objects but they are also reflective of the methodologies inherent in their creation. The photograph is no longer reliant upon nineteenth century technology. It is digital, malleable and infinitely reproducible. More and more photographs have greater lives as digital images than printed, paper objects to be stored or displayed. The video has also transcended its analog past. Video is no longer tied to the magnetic powders electronically merging with the plastic of the tape. It exists purely as ones and zeros, abstract and abstracted. The video information flows directly from the brain to the lens to the computer and ultimately to the Internet or DVD.

Mediate Me is a show that seeks to explore new ways of thinking about the self-portrait. In an era where the image of the self is more ubiquitous than ever before, what does it mean to display the self? Where is the break between the self that is self contained within the body and the self that flows along digital lines? Contemporary technology offers up numerous ways of constructing the self. Does this cause our notion of ourselves to multiply or do these modes simply offer up avenues for expressing the unlimited ways of thinking about the self?

We are at a moment in history where the self is defined by one’s ability to navigate technology. The ubiquity of the computer in our society should encourage us to think about the self in relation to its presence. We have reached the Harraway moment. To think of the self is to think about the device. We are all cyborgs. How do we picture ourselves? What does it/we look like?