Unraveling Digital Media


German artist Margret Eicher works in "traditional media," but don't let that fool you... Her tapestries, watercolors, and paintings are digital art in every sense of the phrase, employing digital weaving and printing tools and techniques to comment on information society. Eicher appropriates vernacular imagery of pop cultural figures, as well as news photos, video game images, and iconic art historical images to craft unique digital collages that then get translated into their "traditional" form. In an upcoming show at [Dam] Berlin, called "SHE," Eicher will present three tapestries that play off of the tropes of sensuality, irony, and provocation to explore femininity. Her images range from stills of the TV show "Desperate Housewives" to photos of "young bored couples." The tapestry medium is one with an important history, touching upon wealth and industry as well as early computing, in the era of Jacquard's Loom. Eicher is precise in recalling this history and using it as a vehicle to fabricate semiotic and psychological analyses of figurative gestures and their political implications, in mainstream visual culture. Her exhibition will be up from March 14-May 17 and more images of her work can be found here. - Marisa Olson

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