Initial Public Offering
Artist blood, ink, glass, and metal on wood panel
18 x 24 in
December, 2018
As microchips become smaller and the lines between technology and humanity become blurred, are we truly exceptional, as artists? Will there come a day in which we must quantify our actions, our worth, and our very sense of self in order to survive in a data driven environment?
In this piece, I present our environment as a universe unto itself, with galaxies and orbits of ideologies, artists, collectives. It is flat because this is what we have always been, and will be, after the collapse of our current stage of technology. We, and our values, can perhaps be reduced to flat, cartesian projections of data points against a quantified, market driven world. However, one variable still stays organic: the concept of human will and self-worth, painted in blood on glass. It is the single variable that can never be truly mechanized, digitized, or quantified.
This quasi-infographic is tied with International Associated Art Index, a side project I am currently exploring. With technological disruptions to the market, traditional business models are forced to transform to survive — including art markets such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s moving into internet business, or individual artists selling paintings through services such as Etsy without the support of traditional institutions. This painting is also a manifesto to take this new market structure even further through a digital transformation of art and artists alike, to become entities to be listed and traded as stocks for greater accessibility to the general public.