Addie Wagenknecht is a renowned American conceptual artist who works in the fields of emerging media, open-source culture, pop culture, and hacker culture, exploring the tension between human expression and technology. Using Melvin Kranzberg's first law of technology as a reference, which states: "Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral," Wagenknecht toys with the idea that technology can be all those things. In her work, which combines digital technology with painting, sculpture, photography, and installation, she deals with the concepts of privacy, freedom, surveillance, consumption, and feminism in our digitally dominant society.
Details
Description: The Liberator Vases are a series of vases composed of 3D prints of the open-source Liberator gun, the first 3D modeled, open-source handgun made available for download online, utilizing torrent sites. The Liberator gun is multiplied and parametrically modeled to form a recognizable classic vase. The guns are thus deformed, clustered and turned useless, in a way that points to the subversive power of appropriation and creativity but also attempts to morph the gun into an artifact of the network itself. The works tackle internet culture, the power and yet the underbelly of data transfer, information sharing, freedom of exchange empowered by technology. Whilst now inert, nay beautified, the vases are simultaneously an item of serious concern and of great beauty as they mimic ancient objects, ornate urns: Until we catch a glimpse of a trigger, a barrel, a different intent. Constructed themselves from the data transfer from Europe to Dubai, they encapsulate, as artworks, the multi layered essence of the empowerment and dangers of the latest digital technology evolutions. As we all question technology’s impact on our lives (as we watch the inevitable acceleration of the likes of Artificial Intelligence), these works have never been a more powerful embodiment of digital art and commentary on our evolving digital society.
Dimensions: 26 × 26 × 50 cm
Edition Type: 3D printed resin, paint finish
Edition Size: Edition of 1 + 1 AP
