Digital Dark Ages
One can feel it behind the eyes like the fog before a migraine sets in. The buzz words like the hum of fluorescent lights, tumbling from the mouths of talking heads like water from the puckered lips of a stone cherub. Disruptive innovation, exit strategies, the New Normal, Post-fact politics, Fake News.
In the wake of the referendum on Brexit and the election of Donald J. Trump as the next president of the US set against the backdrop of a European Union visibly in the grips of a sweeping movement of Nationalism, my research will focus on developing a clearer picture of the mechanics involved in what I am dubbing the Digital Dark Ages.
From internet tutorials, click bait, twitter bots and algorithmic content filtration, my source material will be drawn from the agentive forces acting through the internet. Movements in the arts, including but not limited to Net Art, Tactical Media, Post-Internet Art, Glitch and Additivism, will set the background for my conceptual development and creative output. My projects will direct art and design towards bringing light to our situation, both addressing understated or overlooked aspects of certain Technology oriented cultural practices and positing potential work arounds for present and imagined future systems of population control.
Pillipp Stearns work uses electronic technologies and electronic media as tools to explore dynamic relationships between ideas and material as mobilized within complex and interconnected societies.
Deconstruction, reconfiguration, and extension are key methodologies and techniques employed in the production of works that range from audio visual performances, electronic sculptures, light and sound installation, digital textiles, and other oddities both digital and material. He received his MFA in music composition and integrated media from the California Institute of Arts in 2007 and his BS in music technology from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2005.
His work has been exhibited internationally at electronics arts festivals, museums, and galleries including: Turku Biennial 2013, WRO Biennale 2013, Transmediale 2013, Denver Art Museum (2013), The Photographer’s Gallery London (2012), The Camera Club of New York (2012), Eyebeam (2012, 2007), Harvestworks (2010, 2012); Gli.tc/H 2112; Festival De Arte Digital 2010; FILE 2009; NIME 2009; Filmer La Musique 2009; FONLAD 2009; Torrance Art Museum (2008, 2007); Optica Film Festival & (2011 2008). He has participated in residencies at the Making Lab of the 4th APAP ( Korea 2013), Textielmuseum in Tilburg, NL (2013), Institute for Electronic Arts (2012, 2013), Museums Quartier (Vienna 2010), STEIM (Amsterdam 2007, 2013), Experimental Television Center (2009), Harvestworks (NY 2010), Free103Point9 (2012). He has presented and led workshops at several international institutions including the Universidad De Chile (Santiago 2013), Santiago Maker Space (2013), Pomona College (2013), Recyclism Hacklab (Dublin 2013), and the Science Gallery (Dublin 2013).
