Sean Noyce

Technoselfie is a series of new media paintings about our perception of others, as filtered through the lens of our digital devices. Subjects in the paintings are rendered by a computer using code written by the artist that leave subtle traces of the original source material, much like the distortion from a bad internet connection. The computer-generated image is later screen-printed on board, on top of which the artist layers paint that accentuates the hand-made qualities of the medium.

Winston Churchill is quoted saying, “history is written by its victors,” which fittingly described the past hundred years under white male dominance. Their stories were glorified via television, radio, and printed media, while exalting their passions and desires. Thanks to the internet and social media, the stories we hear are now being told from a wider array of people. Although the democratization of media appears to be a good thing, our interpretation of the facts continues to be filtered through the lens of the new victors: the programmers of our devices, who are by-and-large, men. At Google, men make up 83 percent of the technical workforce, while Facebook is an abysmal 85 percent male.

Furthermore, our perpetual access to celebrities, politicians, and average folks distort the way we process their stories. Intimate details of their lives never tell the whole story, as only “newsworthy” events are favored. The everyday experience of living a life is lost amongst an endless feed of selfies, sex scandals, and police shootings.

Portraits from Technoselfie utilize motifs and conventions common to classicism, like the bust, the still life, and symmetrical composition. Many Silicon Valley visionaries liken their pursuits to the beauty of brain-born images that are more perfect than nature, on par with the aspirations of Greco-Roman scholars and philosophers.

Technoselfie is seen as a reflection of ourselves and the shape-shifting monster from within. The powers that have formed our collective experience from the last century continue to haunt us, distorting our perception of each other. The task of our time will be to understand the forces behind the programming and take control of our own narratives.