Jon Rafman

About

His work investigates how the boundless possibilities of the internet and virtual platforms affect and redefine our behavior, social life and even personal identity.       

Like a visual anthropologist, Jon Rafman (1981, Quebec)  delves into the subcultures of the online world, analyzing the behavior of those who use these alternative, sometimes grotesque universes such as multiplayer video games and 3D virtual communities like Second Life. Oscillating between wit, melancholy and alienation, Rafman’s penetrating and often unsettling video films lay bare a new, hyper-individualized state of mind – the mental landscape inhabited by today’s users of digital technology.  Rafman is regarded as one of the leading artists of the digital age, and has a huge online following.

The Stedelijk Museum has invited Rafman to present an installation in two spaces of the lower level gallery. Comprising recent work, the artist will create an environment to transport the viewer - physically and mentally – into a realm populated by avatars, online subcultures and communities that exist in the shadowlands of the internet.

Rafman’s book Nine Lives will be released in summer 2016. Containing a vast array of images culled through Google Street, the artist presents situations – odd, grim, at times alarming – randomly caught on camera http://9-eyes.com

The work of Jon Rafman is from June also on view in the Berlin Biënale and on Manifesta 11 in Zürich.

- See more at: http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/jonrafman#sthash.tEkRtx66.dpuf