System Landscapes
Iframe, 2007
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About the artwork
system landscapes made in 2007 is a work that considers a computer program itself as a landscape, shown in the format of a website to easily be able to share with people online. early google earth satellite imagery is layered behind error messages in adobe photoshop from using the program too heavily and aggressively causing crashes. there is also useage of landscaping and botany software found online. repetition and abstraction of the error messages highlight the frustrations but also the playfullness of world building and art making on a computer.
Petra Cortright’s core practice is the creation and distribution of digital and physical images using consumer or corporate software. She became renowned for making self-portrait videos that use her computer’s webcam and default effects tools, which she would then upload to YouTube and caption with spam text. Cortright’s paintings on aluminum, linen, paper, or acrylic are created in Photoshop using painting software and appropriated images, icons, and marks. The digital files are endlessly modifiable, but at a “decisive moment” they are translated into two-dimensional objects.
Cortright lives and works in Altadena, CA. She studied Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, NY (2008) and the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). Her works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Péréz Museum (Miami), The Bass Museum (Miami), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), MOTI (Breda) in collaboration with Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), MCA Chicago, Kadist Foundation (San Francisco), BAMPFA (Berkeley, CA), the San Jose Museum of Art (San Jose, CA), Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology, and MOCA Los Angeles.