ABSTRACT BROWSING
During lockdown, Upstream Gallery presents a new series of Upstream Focus exhibitions in our private viewing space. In this series of short exhibitions, we highlight a single (series of) work by one of our artists. Between 17 — 27 March 2021 we present two tapestry works from Rafaël Rozendaal’s Abstract Browsing series.
Rozendaal’s Abstract Browsing tapestries draw an analogy between the pixel and the loom, and transform the Abstract Browsing plugin to tapestries depicting the underlying structure of websites such as Twitter and Google. Similar to the tapestries, the artist’s lenticular paintings are a way of translating digital work into the physical world. The colourful, multi-layered works evoke a sense of movement when the viewer walks walk past it.
‘I’m interested how our eyes move across the screen, how websites adapt, learn from your behavior, and change over time. Optimized to grab your attention, to never get boring, to tempt you to click and click and never leave. Websites are constantly maximizing their efficiency, separate from aesthetic concerns. Websites learn from users by trial and error. Technology asks new questions about composition. I’m looking for unusual compositions. Anti-compositions, unhuman compositions, compositions that humans would not have created on their own. I surf the web every day using the plugin. Whenever I find a composition that strikes me, I take a screenshot. Just like digital photography, I take way too many images, thousands and thousands. The real challenge is editing. Making tapestries out of these compositions forces me to choose. Out of all the files I have, I have to choose which ones become objects. The physicalization (weaving) brings focus. The software is fast and fluid, textile is expensive and slow. It slows me down, it helps me to pause and reflect.’
RAFAËL ROZENDAAL
Rafaël Rozendaal is a Dutch-Brazilian artist who currently lives and works in New York. Rozendaal’s artistic practice comprises of websites, installations, prints and writing. His work takes shape through a range of transformations – from movement into abstraction, from virtual into physical space, and from website to print – with all of them informing each other. All of his works have one thing in common: they stem from a fascination with moving images and interactivity in its most basic form. Although Rozendaal is best known for his artworks in the form of websites, he sees no hierarchy between his websites and physical works: ‘The experience that you have when you are at home using Abstract Browsing on your computer is as authentic as viewing one of the tapestries in a gallery. From my point of view: the Internet is like a waterfall, an exhibition more like an aquarium’.
Rozendaal is also the founder of the exhibition concept Bring Your Own Beamer, an evening where artists bring their own projectors to display their digital work. Since 2010 there have been over 100 BYOB exhibitions, including one at the Venice Biennale. Rozendaal’s work has been exhibited, amongst others, at the following venues: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (USA), Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), Kunstverein Frankfurt, (DE), Kawasaki City Museum,Kawasaki (JP), New Museum, New York (NY, USA), Nam June Paik Art Center Seoul (KOR), Hammer Museum Los Angeles (USA), Kunsthal Rotterdam (NL), MOTI Museum Breda (NL), Times Square Midnight Moments New York (NY, USA), Telfair Museum, Savannah (GA, USA), Centre d’Art Bastille, Grenoble (FR), With Project Space, New York (NY, USA) and Towada Art Center (JP).