The Indistinct Ephemera of Now

Exhibition dates. 10 - 22 Dec 2024

Sol Gallery, Fitzroy

The Indistinct Ephemera of Now includes work by Ingmar Apinis, Sue Beyer, Linda Loh, Simon Rankin, Angela Rossitto who all make work informed by postdigital, post internet and post AI concerns.

In an increasingly digitised world, we ask what it is to be human. The artists in this exhibition find common ground in ideas that point to “a cultural change that is occurring and an attempt to understand the ways in which technology shapes the things we make, as well as the ways in which we in turn perceive these things” (Paul 2023, 251). Topics like climate change, financial inequalities, the internet, social media, and the advent of AI, are a part of today’s dominant cultural mode and can be collectively referred to as the Metacrisis. Despite this bend in history, a sense of hope prevails in the work these artist’s make.

In Simon Rankin’s work we encounter creature-like anthropomorphic portraits. These portraits capture potential AI entities that could be powering chatbots, drone pilots, or autonomous machines. By imagining the familiar and foreign, “Specimens” considers implications of ceding control to rapidly advancing computational intelligence.