Tony Oursler
“Magical Variations”
Online Viewing Room
Magical Variations features nine new works by New York-based artist Tony Oursler that combine painting, drawing, printing, and collage with embedded video components. This series continues Oursler’s decades-long investigation into the lasting effect technology has on humanity and his exploration of the boundaries between technology, nature, and culture.
TONY OURSLER Upsidedown., 2020 Mixed media with digital display 22 x 17 inches 55.9 x 43.2 cm
For the works in this presentation, Oursler employs the concept of magical thinking―the belief that one’s ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence events in the material world―to draw connections between technology, culture, and seemingly unrelated historical and apocryphal events. Using magical thinking as a lens, Oursler creates sophisticated narratives that ask us to question the veracity of information we have long taken at face value, provoking significant questions about both our future and our past, and challenging what defines truth and the role of technology in society today.
““There’s so much magical thinking around technology. The idea is that you’re going to be taken care of by Google or Facebook, but you’re not being taken care of…in truth it might be the opposite.”
Tony Oursler”
Combining hand-made images with intricately layered videos, Oursler brings together disparate subjects such as the tale of the Headless Horseman and the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing, 5G conspiracies and the destruction of redundant iPhone models, and new age iconography and infrared footage from a shopping mall. Oursler merges these and countless other references to obscure histories, inviting us to observe how we learn, explore, and understand the complex narratives that shape our world.
Take a trip down the rabbit hole and get lost in Magical Variations, a new online viewing room that transports you to Tony Oursler’s world and into the realm of magical thinking and technology.
