Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction - Graduate Symposium
PCA graduate students’ academic symposium was held on Wednesday, April 29, 2020. Originally, this event was planned to be held at Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires (CRI).
However, due to the current pandemic, we have shifted to a digital platform. Coincidently, this change in delivery coincides with the symposium’s theme, entitled Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.
Overall, we hope to address the shift of today’s art culture due to digital evolution in this conference. The symposium is relevant and necessary in recent light of the coronavirus pandemic. Many artists, galleries and museums have opted for digital representation and dialogue.
As well, we seek to increase dialogue and networking highlighting the changes in recent technology, visual media culture, and what this means for the art world.
Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction
The symposium consists of eight presenters discussing their research and its relationship to current technological advancements.
Aditi Kay (BFA Fine Arts senior) discusses ‘Post-Internet’ and what it means to be a ‘Post-Internet Artist’.
Molly Lynch (1st year MFA Photography and Image Making) explores the evolution of ‘reality’ in media photography.
Shruti Mukherjee (MA Photography and Image Making) reviews Walter Benjamin’s essay on ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’.
Rage Collective share their recent research: 404: Resistance in the Digital Age, which looks at the Chinese web culture of using memes to avoid censorship, as well as the use of memes and digital art in recent European, Russian, and US protests and global issues.
Florina Balavendran (MA Transdisciplinary New Media) presents her research with a transdisciplinary approach on understanding how the affective state of the viewer and material influences fashion & technology on the concept of the gaze from the spectator’s perspective.
Taline Shahinian (MA Drawing) addresses how the Dadaists used provocation as a tool for their fascination with technology by exploring the influence on contemporary artists Pavlensky and Banksy.
Isabelle Hoonan (MA Transdisciplinary New Media) talks about the history of virtual reality and how technical and cognitive aspects contribute to empathic action.
Chris Lee (MA Photography and Image Making) discusses the art of storytelling and its evolution and function as a digital medium.