Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist Katherine Behar will present E-Waste, an exhibition of new work at UK’s Tuska Center for Contemporary Art. 

Behar’s installation centers on a new series of sculptures inspired by a science fiction scenario in which commonplace USB devices continue working, long after the humans they were designed to serve have gone extinct. The gadgets are transformed into mutant fossils, encased in stone with lights blinking, speakers chirping, and fans spinning eternally. The exhibition also includes a video series, Modeling Big Data, in which the artist inhabits an obese, over-grown data body, to humorous and poignant effect. 

Behar’s work challenges digital culture’s intense escalation of productivity. Wavering between poetry and parody, her works elicit sympathy for the devices we exploit, suggesting that we ourselves are becoming increasingly device-like: ensnared in compulsory productivity, whether “working” in the traditional sense for our own gain, or generating value for distant corporations each time we search the web or click “like.” Combining machine-made, handmade, and organic forms, including a “fossilized” 3D printer, E-Waste offers a physical parallel to the excesses of big data, highlighting the counterpart surplus of consumer media artifacts, and drawing attention to its environmental impact. 

E-Waste is co-produced by the College of Fine Arts and the College of Arts and Sciences, and supported in part by a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York.

This will count as a Wired Event!!