By: Ellie Jornlin
The Stamp Student Union Gallery is home to “The Digital Landscape,” a free group art exhibition on display from Aug. 26 to Oct. 5 that explores how humans interact with the physical and digital worlds.
The installation showcases six artists with a diverse range of technological skills, from animation to augmented reality, video, photography and artificial intelligence. The exhibit creates a space for viewers to examine their relationships with technology and digital spaces.
Ally Christmas, a visual artist and assistant professor of art at Shepherd University, is one of the featured artists. One of her pieces is a video titled “Sinking,” which explores the tension and anxieties that arise from navigating physical and virtual realms simultaneously.
“One of the major ideas that I was focusing on when I created this piece is the divide between who we are in real life and who we are online,” Christmas said. “Realizing that those two entities are actually the same but just take different forms.”
Chris Combs, a D.C.-based electronic sculpture artist, approaches technology from a different perspective, focusing on the pervasive nature of surveillance and data collection.
In one of Combs’ standout works, “Pollination,” viewers see their faces and any words they speak reflected in spiraling flower shapes. While initially captivating, it becomes clear that the piece mimics the way faces, actions and speech are being captured in the digital world.
“I’m interested in having people maybe do a double take before installing something on their device. Thinking, ‘Who’s going to use this’ or ‘Why do you want my location history,’” Combs said. “That little moment would be great.”
Each artist in “The Digital Landscape” explores a different aspect of humans’ interactions with technology and the way it shapes perceptions of reality and identity.
Mollye Bendell, an artist and assistant professor of art at the University of Maryland, created “Outgrown,” a series of augmented reality works that envision weeds that once grew in the physical world, now thriving in a digital one. The series contrasts the physical and digital realms to highlight nature’s resilience.
“In art, a tool is often applied in a way that subverts or questions its traditional use, and I think that questioning space, the space of imagining what unintentional things our tech can do, is a place I hope visitors will be open to,” Bendell said.
Featured image by Norah Copenhaver inside STAMP Gallery, Sept. 17, 2024.