For certain bodies of the work, I have sought to create media
metaphors for contemporary trends in philosophical and sociological
thought, often with colleague Jonathon Epstein. These metaphors
reflect the fact that speaking the multimedia culture can no longer
be confined to text, but now is in the form of graphics, sound,
and video, often in simultaneous configurations. If language is
a virus, it has then mutated to a multimedia one, and anyone who
has ever watched CNN is infected. And we don't want a cure.
Special thanks to Dr. Jonathon Epstein of Kent State University
for his collaboration in a number of these works.
The following are brief expositions on the works exhibited.
"Everything has Become Culture"; Created as a response to the
CTHEORY (A & ML Kroker) interview with Jean Baudrillard, "Vivisecting
the 90's" Following from his ideas of transparence in which all
aspects of postmodern society permeate one another, Baudrillard
states that everything has become culture. And we say even himself.
And it's full of virtual goodness!
Tools: Photoshop, Bryce 2, Truespace 2. Components modeled and
rendered, and then composited in Photoshop.
"Panic Nietzsche" The will to Virtuality is the replacement of
the body corporeal into the body virtual; the body telematic.
And this includes Nietzsche! Here, Nietzsche-as-Overman has made
the transition flawleslly, and prepares to surf the oceans of
data on the global nets. Panic Nietzsche indeed!
Tools: Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX 1.2, Kai's Power Tools Components
modeled and rendered, then and composited in Photoshop.
"Hiroshima in Ruins" At the end of history (Baudrillard, Fukuyama),
information is no longer equated with knowledge or memory. It
is merely information that replicates itself in endless repetition
as it is distributed across the media nets. And this is no more
evident than with the American Media Infotainment Machine, which
addicts us with calamity, both past and present to give Western
society a vicarious thrill of impending danger after the end of
the Cold war. So we sit in our overstuffed chairs, eating greasy
snacks while we watch smart bombs on CNN and rehashed A-Bomb films
on the History channel.
Tools: Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX 1.2, Kai's Power Tools. Components
modeled and rendered, then composited in Photoshop.
"Place Kierkegaard's Face Here" Identity in the age of the Net
is fluid, multiplicituous (Turkle), and simultaneous. We can take
part in Warhol's dream and BE Warhol for 15 minutes, or even Kerkegaard
for that matter.
Place Kierkegaard's face here!
Tools: Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX 1.2, Kai's Power Tools Components
modeled and rendered, then composited in Photoshop.
"Land of the Posts" After the Berlin Wall and Auschwitz, we are
groping for meaning in an age where our cultural referents have
collapsed. We are in an era of past tenses - post-industrial,
post modern, post structuralist. These cultural signs zip past
us like old American Burma Shave signs as we zip down the Infobahn
heading for technotopia?
Tools: 3D Studio R4.
"Rite" Once again, the will to virtuality is the leaving behind
of the body physical into the body virtual, leaving the corporeal
in flesh dumps of material existence. What then, of the newborn
data selves, searching the nets for signs of their existence?
They will look to the wires and the vast seas of incalculable
data. And the call will reverberate through the nets.
Tools: 3DS Max 1,1, Metacreations Poser, Photoshop Components
modeled and rendered, then composited in Photoshop.
© Patrick Lichty