Over the course of three decades, MARK AMERIKA is best known for creating Internet and video narratives that explore the relationship between digital images, electronic forms of writing, and sound art. Amerika uses his background as a published novelist and filmmaker to create works of art that function as literary and philosophical commentaries on digital pop culture and technology. Among his most well known pieces is GRAMMATRON, one of the first works of Internet art selected for the 2000 Whitney Biennial of American Art. His new media artwork, FILMTEXT, was originally commissioned by the ICA in London as part of his retrospective exhibition, How To Be An Internet Artist. His work Immobilité was the first long-form work of video art shot entirely on a mobile phone and was included in his mid-career retrospective at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. In his recent work, such as Lake Como Remix, Amerika explores the formal properties of the Internet as a space for what he terms “glitch aesthetics.” markamerika.com
Lake Como Remix, 2012 Digital video 9’48” 1/3 with 1 A.P.
Amerika’s Lake Como Remix video art work is a playful reminder of the virtual and networked world we live in. In the video, the artist experiments with the Google Street View online mapping program to create a rich field of morphing glitch aesthetics accompanied by a cinematic soundtrack.
The work is reminiscent of early video art experiments by artists like Nam June Paik but puts a contemporary Internet spin on the images. One of the most widely exhibited works in Amerika’s series of works focused on glitch aesthetics, Lake Como Remix reveals the way online technologies stitch new forms of reality into what passes as a representation of the real while documenting an alternative and experiential “head trip” suggestive of both time-travel and teleportation.
. Selections from 8-Bit Heaven series, 2016
Digital prints, unframed 40″ W x 26.5″ H Each print, Edition of 10 with 2 A.P. Signed certificate of ownership Other sizes available
While making his UK-commissioned artwork Museum of Glitch Aesthetics, Amerika’s 8-Bit Heaven series of images were composed by capturing and manipulating street view imagery off of the Internet through an 8-bit filter. The resulting street images are reminiscent of old video games that remix the look and feel of past computer animation imagery with contemporary scenes from street life in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo and London. In the 8-Bit Heaven series, Amerika is able to show us how retro-aesthetics can become fashionable again while inventing a new form of image making he refers to as “Internet photography.”
Digital prints from the 8-Bit Heaven series have been exhibited at Amerika’s gallery shows in London, Honolulu and Denver and were featured at his 2017 survey show, Glitch Mix: not an error, in Havana, Cuba.