Rachel Jackson: Platform Artifacts
Platform Artifacts consists of a grouping of three photo-sculptural works, each depicting recently expired subjects that have circulated via online platforms, and that, arguably, occupy more virtual ground than physical.
These subjects, reliant upon the favor of algorithms to dictate their visibility, have been converted into pseudo-artifacts and embedded in slabs of marble. Paralleling their calculated online distribution, false marble bases have been constructed using Blender’s procedural marble node, which relies upon a set of algorithms to replicate organic textures. After being 3D-printed, the sculptures are wrapped in a hydrographic print of an Adobe Stock marble texture, endowing them with an additional layer of artifice. The sculptures are then photographed, printed, and enclosed within frames that trace the outlines of each marble slab’s perimeter. The steps of translation within their production engage with the slippery state between image and object, where subjects are reduced to a flattened, two-dimensional state that often counters their material existence.