BmoreArt

There is a mystery to materiality, what philosophers have called an ‘is-ness’, in which language has been designed to probe and demystify in a subtle demonstration of imposition. Language is power. Our unwavering impulse towards classification has resulted in extremely capable tools like digitization, which now blurs the lines between what is, isn’t, wasn’t, or could’ve been with exponentially growing proficiency.

Current technology allows for a perception of a new reality, helping us to experience events and records from the past in entirely new contexts. We now have the ability to recreate precious antiquities in ‘any flavor’— to create demographics and economies based on illusions of imperishability, to recreate reality to taste, with none of its imperfections, and as a consequence, none of its mystery. The work by Alan Resnick and Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez in ‘Base Period’ at Springsteen Gallery aims to render these conditions as resulting in a ‘calcification’ of ‘isness’, surveying contemporary iconography and aesthetics as catalogued artifacts.

Alan Resnick is a new media artist living and working in Baltimore Maryland, and an active member of the Wham City artist collective. He has shown work, performed, lectured internationally, and created original content for WIRED and Adult Swim. Much of his work highlights the human desire to recreate itself through technology.

Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1983. He received his BFA as well as a Master’s Degree in Digital Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Lesser’s work is rooted in a critical observation of contemporary culture.

Photos by jack Livingston