Up Close and Personal with Visual Artist ‘Archive5’

Archive5, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. You describe your practice as drawing from the “emptiness of the Internet,” despite its apparent saturation with synthetic emotion and culture. Can you unpack what first drew you to this paradox and how it informs your creative process?

I think what first drew me to this paradox of ‘apparent saturation’ was the film ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’. Albeit I did not immediately make a connection between the movie and online emptiness. It was only after watching it a second time about a year later that I thought of the absurdity of events that transpire in that film as being a commentary on modern, synthetic, and online life.

This idea really stood out to me as I began to think of the internet and online as more of a presence that exists in modern life, rather than a separate world. The complexity of the world which engages online feels completely inescapable, similar to how the daughter in the film feels that nothing matters and everything she knows is absorbed into a bagel. I was born in 2007, and so honestly, I have very few memories which are completely separate from the presence of the internet.

This complexity directly informs my creative process, and I attribute the complexity as driving me to make simple compositions. When I consider the convoluted and paradoxical nature of online emptiness and synthetic emotion, it seems impossible to represent this feeling with images I may find online. Initially, I thought I may make some absurdist paintings, people with multiple heads who turn into different objects or animals, I don’t know. But these types of images felt too small for what I want to represent. The inspiration for my work is the complex nature of the internet and modern human experience as a whole presence. I feel this is best represented by colour displayed in simple compositions, not restricted by form.

Reflecting on your journey so far, was there a pivotal moment, artwork, or experience that sparked your commitment to becoming an artist?

I remember seeing a Rothko painting for the first time and just being completely obsessed. His simple compositions seemed to hold so much power, I felt like I wanted to simply disappear and live inside of the colour orange.

Around the same time, in my philosophy class, we were learning about Plato’s cave and his world of the forms. What Plato described as the ultimate form of good, or the ultimate reality of the forms, I felt like I really saw that in Rothko’s compositions.

This possessed me with a conviction to create art in any way I can. It’s kind of cliché, but I remember waking up one morning and just thinking this is what I should do with my life. I must be an artist.

You cite 20th-century modern artists like Rothko as inspirations, especially in their use of colour to express human experience. How do you see your own relationship with colour evolving in the context of today’s digital landscape?

The reason I find Rothko’s compositions so powerful is their simplicity. They feel incredibly complete in encompassing human experience, at least to me. I don’t know exactly where my relationship with colour will go, as there are many interesting ways of considering it. For the moment, I consider my relationship with colour tentative.

When I paint, I am trying to reflect or speak to something which is beyond myself. I get frustrated, however, as the amount of paint changes on the canvas, and I see the colours as reflecting my own personal emotions.

The digital landscape I attempt to examine in my work is detached from the self. I hope my relationship with colour evolves to be more detached from me, and turn toward what I would like to examine, which is synthetic human experience.

Mentorship can play a powerful role in shaping an artist’s perspective. Have you had any mentors—formally or informally—who have influenced your practice or thinking?

No, I wouldn’t say I have had any formal mentors who have informed my practice. My art teacher at school discouraged me from painting because she encouraged me to do more sculptural work.

I think this perhaps informally influenced me to pursue painting as something that could be done without my teacher looking over my shoulder making comments. If anyone would like to mentor me, I am open to being a mentee though!

Much of your work seeks to reclaim the significance of colour in an online world where it’s ever-present but often stripped of meaning. Can you describe your approach to using colour as both subject and tool in your recent pieces?

When I consider colour as a subject, I think of it in isolation, insofar as to say, I detach my thinking from what colours may represent in other spheres. When I paint, I attempt to explore colour’s importance as an end in itself, placing emphasis on how the colour sits in the composition rather than it being in response to a particular online stimulus.

I wouldn’t say I use colour as a tool in my work, as ‘tool’ implies that I consider colour as having one particular function or purpose.

How do you decide which media or techniques best serve your exploration of synthetic life and online emptiness? Are there digital or traditional materials you find yourself returning to, and why?

When I started painting, I used undiluted acrylics on paper. As I’ve evolved, however, I have enjoyed using a mix of both acrylics and oils on canvas, mixing with different amounts of water and turpentine.

I wanted to portray a sensitivity to the paradox of online saturation and the emptiness I feel when engaging with it. When choosing to use a mix of materials, I felt this tension between the paints, which supposedly aren’t supposed to be mixed, was a good display of the tension between synthetic saturation and emptiness.

I have done experiments with photography and then digitally manipulated these with filters as a way of directly engaging with online stimuli. However, I still found painting a better way to engage with the idea of the internet as a presence, whilst remaining separate to it.

The Internet can be both a source of inspiration and a space of isolation. How do you navigate this tension in your work, and what do you hope viewers feel when encountering your pieces?

All of my work comes from this tension. I spend so much time scrolling online, but when I paint, I don’t seem to be able to recall any images I particularly want to display. What comes to mind when I consider the tension between inspiration and isolation? I think of interactions I have online, both passive and active, and how they feel both tangible and intangible simultaneously.

When viewers encounter my work, I suppose I hope they feel this tension between the tangible and intangible. That being said, I’m not sure I, as the artist, have much control over what people feel with regard to my work. People have told me that they see my work as meditative, which is opposite to my inspiration.

Your practice reflects the polarization and isolating nature of the online experience. Are there particular events, trends, or personal interactions online that have directly influenced your subject matter or artistic direction?

When I think of particular trends online that have influenced my artistic direction, video essays come to mind. These have to be my absolute least favorite things on the internet. I don’t know why YouTube recommends them to me.

Video essays are where someone just sits at their camera and talks for like an hour about some topic or another. It doesn’t seem to matter what the topic is, or how important what they are saying may be. Because it exists on the internet, anything the person is saying seems to lose significance.

The importance of well-articulated ideas seems to be lost online because of the fast-paced and complicated nature of online interactions. This directly influenced my practice as I feel making simple compositions attempts to separate the viewer from prior thoughts or engagements and they have to sit and actually consider a painting to get value from it.

As you prepare to start your undergraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, how do you anticipate your academic environment will shape or challenge your current practice?

Yeah, I think there’s a large possibility this new environment will change my practice. I have been making these paintings about the emptiness of the internet over the course of my A-levels. Alongside Art A-level, I also took English Literature and Philosophy. These courses really shaped my critical thinking and, in turn, influenced how I critically approach my art practice.

I hope at Edinburgh to have lots more discerning conversations about art and its role in the world.

In your view, what is lost—and what can still be gained—when translating the depth of human emotion into digital or synthetic forms of expression?

I think what is primarily lost digitally is a personal sense of self. Depth of emotion and feeling is what seems to make the self. By communicating online, however, the depth of emotion and expression is lost in the haze of supposed connection. This limits the idea of a personal self as there appears to be little separation recognized between connections which happen digitally and in the ‘real’ world.

I think the main proponent of this loss is the casual expressions of emotion digitally. There is a lot to be gained from direct, intentional engagement with synthetic expression, for instance, I find electronic music can be very powerful. However, most expression on social media does not seem to recognize that it is a form of synthetic expression, losing any sincerity or depth to the communication.

Artists like Rothko used colour to push and subvert culture in their time. Do you see your work as a form of resistance, adaptation, or commentary on the digital era’s impact on art and experience?

I like to think of my work as almost counterculture. Because the digital era has such a profound impact on what is valued, I think of my work as being perhaps a very small resistance to what is deemed important in the face of synthetic and digital saturation. Because colour is so ever-present online, it seems almost nonsensical that it alone, in simple compositions, could hold importance, but I hope it does.

Looking ahead, what are your ambitions for the next year—both in terms of your studies and the evolution of your artistic voice? Are there new themes, mediums, or collaborations you’re eager to explore?

For the next year I am eager to continue having great conversations like this one in the hope of spreading my practice and evolving my idea of online emptiness.

One of the ideas that I have been toying around with in my head is writing poetry as a different avenue of art to explore. As I mentioned about words losing their significance in how they are shared online through trends like video essays, I think it would be interesting to explore the significance of words as a form of resistance against the internet’s lack of meaning.

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About Author

Erica Hall

A Canadian. An art, music and film enthusiast, who loves her life and particularly the creative people in it! Glad to be working with a talented and creative group of artists at Occhi.

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