CHATROOM PARANOIA
Ryland Fortie
The Cube
July 2 to September 10, 2016
Curated by Craig Willms, Assistant Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery
This year's Curator’s Choice is the 12th annual exhibition of work by a student graduating from Thompson Rivers University. Selected by Kamloops Art Gallery Assistant Curator Craig Willms, Curator’s Choice annually highlights talent from TRU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts graduating class and gives emerging artists an opportunity to create new work for a professional exhibition space outside the context of school. The 2016 Curator’s Choice exhibition features a new project by Ryland Fortie. Fortie’s research-based practice explores materials and video through multi-media installation. The exhibition title, Chatroom Paranoia, references virtual social spaces found on the Internet as a real time forum for exchanging ideas on particular topics. Through video, sculpture and synthetic objects like plastic fruit, artificial plants and plaster body parts, the artist examines how the lines between virtual and physical space, and therefore social interaction, are increasingly blurred.
Chatroom Paranoia is a multi-media installation that addresses various realities in relation to engagement with others. At a time when there are concerns about oversaturation from too much screen time and a lack of face-to-face engagement, Fortie considers whether these concerns are relevant or simply the way in which people engage socially now, using the technology of the day. In this new work, Fortie questions how meaning and identity are constructed within all social spaces, whether in-person or virtual, and invites the viewer to question notions of authenticity.
Generously sponsored by Cypress Insurance, OA Fine Arts Jewellery Insurance
Installation view of Ryland Fortie: Chatroom Paranoia
Photo: Cory Hope, Kamloops Art Gallery
