Screengrab from paradisenook_w_strippers.swf. Petra Cortright
Back in September during the NY Art Book Fair, Petra Cortright casually mentioned that it normally doesn’t take her longer than 20 minutes to make an artwork. Her e-book, published by Paul Chan’s Badlands Unlimited, took her maybe an hour.
Well, in a change of pace for the artist, this Saturday, Cortright will present a body of work she’s spent a little over a year putting together at Club Midnight in Berlin. The show combines what Cortright described to me as “super virus-y .exes that you install on windows desktops” as living wallpaper, with virtual strippers mouthing “click me” speech bubbles.
I’ve only seen a few files from the 100 plus images that will be presented, but I gotta say, I’m interested. Obviously, viral strippers aren’t symbols of the progress feminism has made over the years, but as an image artifact of the 90’s, I like them regardless. I realize liking computers and a 90’s aesthetic isn’t exactly an argument for the merits of anything, so next week I’ll be speaking to a few artists working with found .ZIP files and the like, in an attempt to broaden my own vocabulary. Sometimes, it takes more than one post to figure out why you like the things you do.
{ 7 comments }
What is a viral stripper and what do they have to do with the 90’s? When you mention image artifact, are you talking about JPEG compression? Do .zip files have anything to do with strippers or the 90’s?
Petra told me the files are viral-y and that they all came from some .zip files she found.
2 be clear theyre .swfs extracted from .exes that were decompiled to .flas 2 be edit’d, & 2 b clear they’re virus-y as hell they want your bank account & windows 95 login info (never give out personal information over the world wide web and sign off if someone in the chat room asks you for your A/S/L) … thank you for the shout-out paddy 🙂
<3 u pet x
Paddy, next time hold your breath and wait for the second post to write a review. This is vague, silly, immature and an insult to the artist. Not that the art is that engaging anyways. I really got nothing out of either the work or the review… so more extra weight baggage on the internet. At least the visuals are cool and there is nudity!
This isn’t a review. It’s just a heads up that the work is out there. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the blog.
Paddy, thanks a lot for this article. It s really good and incredibly effective to spread out the voice! 🙂
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