Carly whitaker

Still photo shown - full videos to be shown at CADAF Miami 2019

BIO

Carly Whitaker is an artist, curator, researcher and lecturer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a BA Fine Arts and a MA in Digital Interactive. She is currently based full time at the Open Window Institute in the School of Creative Technologies as Head of School where she endeavors to encourage critical discourse on the digital medium.

She has participated in numerous exhibitions at art spaces in Johannesburg, Freiburg, Casablanca and Sao Paulo. Her curatorial projects include Floating Reverie’s online digital residency program which has been running for five years. Carly Whitaker is currently extending her practice and research into new areas with her PhD at the University of Reading with a focus on curating and networked methodologies in South Africa.

ABOUT

The screen is a site of traversing and connecting, where digital intimacy forms both with and within the medium itself. Our phones, our private actions, private conversations and thoughts are etched into the digital space. Text messages, Facebook photos, tweets, online shopping, google searching – we leave so much of who we are, who we know and of our connections in these spaces. There are no boundaries, no lines, no fences; the sky is the limit in this protocol-orientated world where we can move and travel from the comfort of our own bedroom. The freedom, and simultaneous intimacy, that the screen offers; a surface which we connect with physically through touch transcends this space into our real embodied spaces. 

We can archive our digital experiences; keep track of the relationships and connections we form online. It also captures us and controls us. Our data exists online and an algorithmic version of ourselves is constructed and curated through how we behave online. We cast spells online while technology casts a spell on us. Technology mystifies us, allows us to exist in ways we never imagined, gives us the space to breath. 

love letters to the internet iv explores the intimacy, connection and love with technology. It reveals how navigating the internet can be overwhelming and trigger anxiety, be misleading and controlling, inspiring and infectious.

love letters to the internet iv is part of an installation titled digilove (2018).