URL:IRL ABOUT ARTISTS ESSAY CURATORS FUNDERS CONTACT DOCUMENTATION #URLIRLyqr

ABOUT

This exhibition, which expands beyond the walls of Dunlop's Central and Sherwood Galleries to include offsite interventions, performances, an Instagram takeover and online components, brings together recent works by Canadian and international artists whose digital and physical artworks bridge material and immaterial practices. Slyly referencing new media art's aesthetic and conceptual impulses, the artists of URL:IRL also explore the pleasures and perils that come with advancements in digital technologies, and how identities, places, and ideas are, for better or worse, constructed and communicated by screen culture.

URL:IRL brings together recent works by Canadian and international artists who bridge material and immaterial practises to explore the gaps between 'IRL' (in real life) and disembodied digital experiences. Slyly referencing new media art's aesthetic and conceptual impulses, the artists use digital media and digital space as their subject and theme for cultural critique.

Advancements in digital technology come with pleasures and perils. Screen culture has altered traditional ways of understanding, constructing and disseminating ideas. Digital space and the internet are now a social construct, breeding within us a set of habits and social practices that have changed how we fashion ourselves and think about reality.

Digital space is no longer a place of imaginary fantasy, but real life.