Jon Rafman, Still Life (Betamale), video still, 2013. Courtesy of the arist
The internet can be a daunting place. Link after link, tab upon tab, it’s easy to get lost in its vortex of useless information and infinite supply of gifs. However, for post-internet artist Jon Rafman, such infinite scrolling is how he finds inspiration. “I see the online world as my material, the same way a painter would use colours and paint. Nothing is created from scratch anymore – everything is created from something else,” he says.
However, the Quebecois artist doesn’t like using the word appropriation to describe his work, nor does he see it as digital readymades. Once he has spent hours mining the internet and selecting images for his installations, he then spends time editing them and adding structure, narratives, dialogue and sometimes his own voiceovers.
Jon Rafman, A Man Digging, video still, 2013. Courtesy of the artist
And although the content uploaded to the internet might sometimes seem chaotic, disparate and even irrelevant, Rafman’s skill lies in highlighting its aesthetic potential, like a poet who finds beauty where others don’t, except Rafman doesn’t find art in the least expected places – he makes art with the least expected materials.“I actually started off by making films and basically started using the internet as an extension of my practice,” he says. “What I find most interesting is how different forms of content can be uploaded to different platforms.”
Jon Rafman, New Age Demanded (Future Angel Racer), 2014. Copyright the artist. Courtesy of Zabludowicz Collection and Feuer/Mesler, New York
This fascination is embedded in his oeuvre which inevitably means dealing with issues relating to intellectual property. Yet when it comes to copyright Rafman isn’t so interested in the law but in the way in which internet culture deals with it. Nonetheless after he tried to publish a book featuring images from Google Street View, he had a brush with the possibility of legal action. “They never really authorised me to use their images,” he says. “But once National Geographic asked me if they could show one of Google’s images in their magazine – and since they were a big enough organisation – they were able to get it signed off by Google under the precondition that we wouldn’t show any violent imagery and that under the picture of the beautiful running reindeer it was stated that ‘no animals were harmed during the shooting.’”
The book in question was the eponymously named first monograph from his ongoing Google Street View project (GSV) “9 Eyes” that he began in 2007 and which consists of unusual images lifted from the app. Captured by cameras fixed to Google’s Street View cars, there’s an element of voyeurism to these images. And because the photos are taken during the day, they capture contrasting demographics and scenes in absolute clarity, from office drones to sex workers to policemen in action and tigers roving in car parks.
Jon Rafman, portrait by Dan Wilton
Subjects on the fringes of mainstream society are one of the themes of Rafman’s work. “I’m interested in the internet troll: obsessive and shut in,” he says. “For me they are like modern day tragic heroes. They represent a certain pole of existence that tells us something about ourselves. They’re often rude and offensive but sometimes their criticism is also revealing.”
The full feature can be found in Sleek #47, our current issue, which you can order here.
Text by Will Furtado
Jon Rafman’s solo exhibition at London’s Zabludowicz Collection is on display from 8 October until 20 December. The preview takes place on 7 October
More: Order from Chaos: Interview with Camille Henrot
More: Right Time, Right Place: Skagen Store Opens in Copenhagen