eClips, video still
Alumna, Rachel Stuckey MFA in Studio Art, 2016, dissects the emotional pull of technology using performative video, projection mapping, video signal manipulation and custom software in her exhibition Good Days & Bad Days on the Internet at Women & Their Work. The exhibition will be on view from November 18 - January 11, 2018.
The exhibition features an evolving collage of Youtube vloggers’ ups and downs, a sales video from a 1980s software company, a deconstructionist tableau on digital labor, and recordings from the deep web. As visitors progress through the gallery space, the works shift tonally from parody to dark abstraction, tracing a browser history that moves from superficial web use to deep, uncharted territory. Stuckey employs various methods of engagement with technology, ranging from commercial seduction to addiction and entrapment to the intoxication of the unknown.
During her time as a graduate in UT Austin’s Studio Art MFA program, Stuckey worked with video and new media to question, parody, and endorse technology’s influence on human bodies, minds, and systems of belief. Stuckey currently lives and works in Austin, TX, where she runs the Welcome to my Homepage Digital Artist Residency. Previously she has served as Director of Speculative Futures at The Museum of Human Achievement and co-founder and programmer for Experimental Response Cinema.
Some of Stuckey’s most recent work includes Spam’s - The Internet: The Restaurant at IRL, a technology initiative located in the Museum of Human Achievement, during Austin’s Fusebox Festival this past April. Spam’s - The Internet: The Restaurant, a post-retro-futurist virtual reality dining experience, had visitors make a reservation and choose their appetizer, entree and dessert from a menu of interactive net.art and experimental VR experiences. This earned Stuckey a nomination for the Austin Critic’s Table award for best independent project in 2016-17.