Faith Holland's SPECULATIVE FETISH Debuts at TRANSFER

Speculative Fetish addresses the way that technology functions as metaphor for the body, both in the language we use and in the ways we behave. Our use of personal devices is inherently intimate; tiny computers hug our thighs in our pockets and light up when we touch them. Such intimate relations-created by accessing sexts, porn, and lovers' messages-also engender care. We update and maintain as push notifications and pings direct our attention. The exhibition will consist of Faith Holland's two new bodies of work, Queer Connections and The Fetishes, as well as an online component, a catalog, and events.

Queer Connections parodies the heteronormative pairing of wires, which are divided into 'male' and 'female' parts. Through sculptural intervention, different typed and gendered wires are 'misconnected' using femme nail polish. These unexpected unions are then photographed and re-rendered as lasercut prints that float, larger-than-life, on the wall.

The Fetishes are hybrid GIF-sculptures that use different consumer devices, such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops as their bases. Each device plays a moving-image abstraction of flesh that has been appropriated from pornography. The screen of each device is treated with a tactile substance such as pubic hair, fur, makeup, or lubricant. The Fetishes highlight the physical way we interact with our devices-caressing, prodding, and cradling them all day long.

Other works included in the show are Best Viewed, a vinyl piece that encourages gallery-goers to remove their underwear. When visitors are directed to the bathrooms in the back of the gallery to take off their undergarments, they will also find Wire Bath, a video depicting the artist bathing in a tub full of ethernet cords. Eroticism merges with relaxation and tenderness surrounded by technology.

Accompanying the exhibition will be a website including Holland's Device Care Manual, with instructions and GIFs that depict the creation and maintenance process of The Fetishes. The launch of the website will coincide with a symposium co-organized with Nora O'Murchú on the conditions of care in art and technology. Related essays and artworks commissioned by artists and critics will also be featured online.

Just as the body is a site for multiple uses, so are technologies. We share our lives with our devices; they provide us with pleasure, and in exchange we offer care.

TRANSFER will publish a catalog with an essay by writer and curator Francesca Gavin in conjunction with Speculative Fetish.

Opening Reception Saturday, October 21st, 2017 from 6-10PM
RSVP on Facebook

TRANSFER
1030 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211

ABOUT FAITH HOLLAND

FAITH HOLLAND is a NYC-based artist and curator whose multimedia practice focuses on intimacy, gender, and sexuality as it relates to technology.

Her work has been exhibited at venues such as The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Elga Wimmer Gallery (New York), Axiom Gallery (Boston), the Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), Human Resources (Los Angeles), DAM Gallery (Berlin), and File Festival (São Paulo). She was a 2014 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship Finalist in Digital/Electronic Art. In 2016, she was an artist-in-residence at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Harvestworks and one of five finalists for the inaugural Post-Photography Prototyping Prize given by Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Her work has appeared in Artforum, The Sunday Times UK, Rhizome, Hyperallergic, Elephant, Fast Company, Ha'aretz, i-D Magazine, ArtSlant, The Creator's Project, Art F City, and Dazed Digital. She received her BA in Media Studies at Vassar College and her MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts.

http://www.faithholland.com

ABOUT TRANSFER GALLERY

TRANSFER explores the friction between networked studio practice and its physical instantiation. The gallery supports artists working with computer-based practices to realize solo installations within our walls, and exhibits internationally to engage the growing market for media-based artworks.

http://transfer.gallery

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