GAME ART: DAVID RAYMOND CONROY'S PROSU(U)MER (2015)
In 2015, British artist David Raymond Conroy curated a show titled Prosu(u)mer for Tallinn Photomonth '15 focusing on the somehow paradoxical gesture - a truly neoliberal imperative - of producing and consuming "content" at once, a mortifying neologism - prosumer, that is - that the Grand Vates of the so-called "participatory culture" cult elevated to a virtue, a performative gesture of boundless creativity or so we were told back when the internet was still perceived as "a cool thing". Among the works that Conroy included in his astute compilation are Karl Smith's in game photographs of Grand Theft Auto V. Such inclusion - which is also a displacement - is itself a clever commentary on appropriation and recontextualization practices, as any "photo" taken in Los Santos is a de facto property of the producer, Rockstar Games. I am also appropriating and recontextualizing Conroy's photo, via Rudolf Lingens, to make a statement about the dissipating notion of copyright in the digital age, or perhaps not, I just love the idea of elevating in-game photography to high brow, first class art thanks to its inclusion in the white cube ghetto. The medium is the massage. "Conroy's work examines the relationship between production, consumption and identity, how our subjectivity mutates and collapses as we experience the cultural output of other people," and that's really important.
: David Raymond Conroy's Prosu(u)mer
LINK