Hazel Ellis
Red Green Blue
Reproductions are referential and indicative of an original: a specific articulation of space and form, a ‘monument’, fixed in geographic position and scale.
Historically and currently, New Zealand has been hugely influenced by reproductions of art from Europe and North America. The internet, as a massive public domain, is more pervasive than ever, but is an increasingly capitalised space, its pervasion in mainstream culture has seen the internet shift from a utopic novelty to a banality. Digital and networked technologies encourage sharing, distribution and mutability; the dissemination of images, content and information are increasingly capitalised and regulated through economic systems of value such as copyrights.
Appropriation is therefore approached in relation to ideas of ownership, access and value. Digital imagery, however, is dematerialised, homogenous in its articulation through the red, green, and blue lights of pixels on screens.
Mediation is a term which describes the mutual influence of media technologies and its users. Online and screen-based media collapse the relationships between time and space, and offer 24/7 access. These mediations therefore destabilise traditional perspectives and orientations (such as the aerial imagery of Google maps, satellites and drones), and renegotiate corporeal senses. It is within these frameworks that this project explores the ontologies of reproduction of institutionalised art-images and objects.
