Not All that Glitters is Pixel

 This multimedia installation is a result of an ongoing dialog between the digital and physical worlds. What begins as a photograph, digital edit, screenshot, gif, or a Google image, can just as well become an object, costume, or a prop and vice versa. Inspired by early-Internet aesthetics, the multi-layered, collage-like scenes featuring the artist as the main character(s), are a reflection on her own, as well as her generation’s virtual and non-virtual identity. As observed across the generation of kids that grew up on the Internet, the cybersphere has reached far beyond its purely practical potential and serves as an intangible space of its own etiquette, language, and set of principles. “Not All that Glitters is Pixel” aims to explore the way that one experiences the “self” online, as they engage with it as an essential tool for establishing belief systems and communities. One of the elements of the installation is a tapestry titled “Paradise is Pixel”, which combines conventional representations of the biblical concept of paradise with digitally made and printed images, in effort to highlight the Internet’s potential to double as a sentient metaphysical space. 

Artist Bio: Martyna Pekala (2000, Poland) is a multimedia artist based in Rotterdam. Within her practice, she reuses and samples self-made symbols through which she forms narratives. She frequent in a variety of mediums, but predominantly video, installation, and costume-making. The starting point of her works is digital, but often takes on a physical form, in attempt to highlight the blurred line between the physical and virtual realities. Her work is influenced by Internet culture and aesthetics, as well as early-2000s children’s toys and media, as seen through the lens of her own experiences of forming an identity in the digital era. With the themes Reality vs Fantasy/Virtual vs Physical at the center of Pekala’s works, her research revolves around online subcultures, contemporary spiritualism, loneliness, and overstimulation.

Website: martynapekala.com

IG: instagram.com/martynampekala/