It has been really great to spend the week working with Mishka Henner as a apart of a workshop surrounding ideas about internet data and our privacy. I had been heavily influenced by Henner’s work during my last project and it was great to discuss the themes of his work. Also the ways in which he has evolved into a photographer working on the edge of the medium.
Our set task was to create a profile on ourselves using nothing but the internet as our source. This evolved trawling through old myspace pages or other accounts we not longer used to see what had been left behind. Our individual digital footprints. It was interesting to explore this hotly contested contemporary issue, that concluded with us sharing our findings and all of us leaving slightly wary of the next time we posted anything online.
I feel that artists like Henner, who help redefine what photography can be, are vitally important to the subject. Photography was spawned through the ideas of innovators but as its accessibility has grown photography as art has continued to re-invent itself in quicker and quicker concession. It was quite perplexing for me to hear that Henner had received a lot of negativity towards his work especially from photography’s traditional core. Photography is all about the unseen, the uncanny and innovation and i feel that its incredibly small minded to try and keep it away from influence of fine art, moving image and other contemporary source might reshape its parameters