Private and Public
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The latest two person show at Dallas' And/Or Gallery showcases the work of Kevin Bewersdorf and Guthrie Lonergan. Using the web in all its multi-functional glory, both these artists emphasize the degree to which the internet has become embedded in our culture and psyches. Lonergan's practice is a superlative example of a new generation of internet artists who combine net.art aesthetics with Web 2.0 content. Turning web surfing into an art form (Lonergan is a founding member of the Nasty Nets Internet Surfing Club), Lonergan borrows from user-generated sites, primarily YouTube, and composes snapshots of a culture that has become increasingly comfortable with the conflation of public and private space. This blurring is evident in the video Babies' first steps for which Longergan combed the web for clips of this monumental family event. With no voice over, the first steps of Riley, Annie Kate, et al, become a compelling vision of how the forms offered by Web 2.0 can transform our most intimate memories into cultural products. Kevin Bewersdorf's work also examines this recontextualization and the eroding distinctions between public and private spaces and the control. In his latest work, Bewersdorf--who recently garnered attention for his part (as co-author and star) in the film LOL The Movie (about our reliance on technology and its affect on our physical relationships), mines the web's image pool with keyword searches and then converts them into objects at his ready-made production house: Walgreens.com's 'Photo Center.' Creating pillows, mugs, coasters and other tchockes, Bewersdorf literally objectifies other people's lives.