Screenshot art captures the 'beauty' of our digital lives
LatestNo messy desk is complete without a chaotic computer screen, cluttered by dozens of open browser windows to articles and Internet pages long forgotten. But where some see mess, New York-based Japanese artist Toru Izumida sees art. She says a busy screen full of open web pages is a window into the soul of 2014 culture.
It’s the inspiration of her screenshot art. Think of it as a technological update to the paper collage.
“My artwork has been inspired largely by the environment of our modern times,” Izumida told Fusion. “We live in a society dominated by personal computers and the internet.”
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Izumida keeps the file name as the title of the work, which is time-stamped to record its moment of creation. The practice is a nod to the photographic nature of a screenshot, which captures a moment in technological time, rather than a moment of real life.
“The most important thing for this work is containing all the things on the screen, so I don’t make edits in most cases, like cropping the toolbar in Photoshop. If that is gone, then it is just regular graphic art,” she says. “My original purpose is not to collage graphics, but to but to leave an archive of modernity.”
And it’s inexpensive to make. There is no material cost associated with screen-shotting, she notes. “[Plus] you don’t get your hands dirty, and it can be done anywhere.”
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Izumida moved from Japan to Queens a year ago for what she says are “spiritual reasons.” Her work has yet to be featured in a gallery.
Check out Toru Izumida’s website here
Daniel Rivero is a producer/reporter for Fusion who focuses on police and justice issues. He also skateboards, does a bunch of arts related things on his off time, and likes Cuban coffee.