STATEMENT
The consistent theme of my entire artistic practice since 2005 is relations of power as played out between humans and other agents such as animals, landscapes, machines, and networks.
I often perform extensive research on records in national collections and digital archives, investigating forgotten and/or overlooked histories such as whaling in the 1920s, and the 1971 Attica prison riot (a historical event in the prisoners’ rights movement in the United States).
This archival research practice transforms into time-based works, including videos and installations.
Persistent methodologies include re-montage of lost or refound films, re-telling of ancient fables and rituals, and restaging of archival documents.
Because of this, the “re-” of remembering and recirculating is a central focus of my work.
My (re-)works recently turned to contemporary social, political, and cultural issues pertaining to training data sets in machine learning (construction of algorithms that can learn from and make predictions or decisions on data). Consequently, I made collages which I turn into large-scale tapestries with a computer-controlled Jacquard Loom. In my tapestry works, which often pertain to the history of art and the politics of representation, the textures, colors, and figures represented are the main artistic concerns.
Marc Johnson
