MELANIE FOSTER

Moving to the Virtual Matrix

2005 - computer parts, cable, LED lights, chicken wire and stereo sound

The body’s relationship with technology through human-machine interfaces is seen through my sculptural blanket. Woven from electronic threads, wires and circuitry, and VR and Internet sounds and slogans, it presents metaphors for the body and skin, as a surface of technological and cultural inscription.

Digital worlds have no tangible being; they exist only as bits of information within cyberspace. My blanket brings these “technological bits” into form and reframes current computer technology within a domestic and traditional craft environment. The bits and bytes and traveling electrons and cables used to weave my blanket are a suggestive collage: the collaboration between information and the material body in cyberspace.

MELANIE FOSTER is a Newcastle-based artist and co-director of Field Contemporary Art Space. She completed her Honours in Fine Art at the University of Newcastle in 2005.
Her approach to art making is hybrid, reflecting and commenting on the contemporary human condition, with a particular emphasis in sound. Her current research in installation art aims at crossing the boundaries of fine art and music to challenge traditional notions of sound and sculpture amalgamating them in new ways.
In 2005 she traveled to South Africa on an International Exchange scholarship from The University of Newcastle studying at Rhodes University for one semester. She has been exhibiting in a variety of solo, group and collaborative shows since 2001.

http://www.melaniefoster.com/

photos courtesy of the artist

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