[WebCultures] digita iction

[{ brad brace }]

you are numbered
you are product
you are doomed

PROXY Gallery 2009-2012
(an online zencart storefront)
http://bradbrace.net/proxy.html

Enlarged (custom, patented algorithms) and enhanced
photographs (now, likely several hundred thousands, soon
over a million), mostly low-res cellphone, web-cam, and
low-end digital camera self-portraits (self-packaging),
culled from dating/social websites.

arkansas, asia-other, bangladesh, korea, lebanon, singapore,
sri lanka, vietnam, australia, british columbia, arizona,
brazil, caribbean, europe-other, florida, france, hawaii,
idaho, illinois, india, italy, japan, louisiana, maine,
mexico-latin-am, morroco, netherlands, new york, oceania,
ontario, oregon, phillipines, quebec, rhode island, russia,
south africa, argentina, chile, columbia, venezuela...

download the backstory at:

http://bbrace.net/proxy.pdf
http://bradbrace.net/proxy.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/author/bradbrace


  you are numbered
 you are product
you are doomed

PROXY Gallery 2009-2012
(an online zencart storefront)
http://bbrace.net/proxy.html
http://bradbrace.net/proxy.html

now showing: Profile Portraits (we the people...) build your
own exhibition + catalogue with commissioned encaustic
profile paintings on 12x12" panels, any subject!

Perhaps this reemergence of the individual is vital. Perhaps
this is how we react as living beings, as mortals, to the
threat of an omnipotent universe, the threat of a definitive
unreality. so this whole array of technology could be taken
to mean that we have again come to believe in our own
existence.

PROXY GALLERY (now showing: we the people): select and
assemble your own custom art exhibition with catalogue based
on commissioned portrait-paintings! Ultra hi-res art files,
suitable for printing, are delivered in one custom
pdf/ebook/directory. thousands of enlarged (custom, patented
algorithms) and enhanced photographs (now, likely several
hundred thousands, soon over a million,) mostly low-res
cellphone, web-cam, and low-end digital camera
self-portraits (self-packaging), culled from dating/social
websites -- as you might expect, there is some explicit
content (more than is permitted here unfortunately: you
really should see them all, but it probably makes little
difference) -- fascinating and occasionally disturbing. I've
decided to also add a set of painting-filters -- this was
good, as it enabled a 'recovery' of many more worthwhile
images, and also clouded any possible erogenous/irregular
corporate claims, but the project now extends beyond my
life-span. I easily make small paintings from these images
and people support that activity: commissioned portrait
paintings, 12" square encaustic on panels, from your choice
of subject -- selected pairs/couples can be intriguing --for
$15,000US. it's interesting to find the balance/inertia
point between the look of photo and painting, and it speaks
to the current social/heroic condition! often the
image-processing makes faces look squinty so it's necessary
to 'bring-back' facial aspects. the display images on the
PROXY Gallery storefront are but quick approximations of the
larger art files which simply don't scale -- kinda like
painted panels. another advantage of the painting filters is
that they drastically reduce the file sizes and make it
well-nigh impossible for someone to covertly res-up these
display images for printing. it's quite incredible to
realize that many of these pictures were only 3-4K or so
when I started to work on them. you may realize that this is
not the first time I've collected anonymous found-public
imagery: notably dumpster-diving (bicycling with backpack at
midnight,) at photofinishers' in the 70's. and of course,
there's the "Insatiable Abstraction Engine" -- collections
from newsgroups.
[http://bbrace.net/insatiable-abstraction.html] but come to
think it, nearly all my work involves repeated multiples or
collections of imagery. my new friends. whenever possible I
retained any color casts, cropping and lighting. the
self-portraits are actually very considered, sometimes
selections made/altered merely to obscure the identity that
they wished to presumably portray initially. sunglasses are
a popular ruse, as are close-ups of cleavage, butts,
tattoos, feet and groins. (curiously, I've yet to see a
picture of hands... ok, now I have:  some intricate
fingernails and the love/hate finger-tats.) many
feature-obilerating camera-flash-portraits in the bathroom
mirror. many of course, occur in and around motorized
vehicles. only one (so far) in a grocery store. and some,
but surprisingly few, are filched from somewhere online, but
this must be a risky choice in the event of an 'actual
encounter.' how much introductory information/description do
you want to put out there to begin with?  there are some
very creative, even artful, solutions to this dilemma.
various select national groups of portraits are also
included in pdf ebook/directories for $250 (this is refunded
with the order of one or more paintings; sorry about the
price but it was a hellish amount of work and I guarantee
you won't be disappointed or YMB), and can be ordered
directly. these images contain sufficient resolution to
print them out on letter-size/A4 paper (or coffee-mugs,
keychains, magnets, photo-stamps, cards, calendars,
tea-towels...) use my verified Paypal account to have the
pdf delivered at no charge: [bbraceATeskimo.com;
http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html] also available through
Scribd and Lulu. you can curate/assemble your own
catalogue/exhibition at the PROXY Gallery storefront.  art
files along with encaustic painted panels are $15,000US
each.  my new friends. having been recently kicked-off
Facebook (there was an anonymous report of a depicted
nipple!), and losing 5,000 appreciative friends - the online
storefront was the perfect place to host a social-media
profile-portrait-collection...  how hypocritical to object
to profile pictures that may have been on FB to begin with;
but it's fun to now position coloured boxes and bars over
n´pples, c´nts and c´cks. how idiotic is that? the files of
course required different custom algorithms and some
masterful retouching -- they look great! technically given
the incredibly diverse range of imagery it was difficult to
make them all equally legible; despite a variety of
intricate processing directives, the scripts would
inevitably crash or be unable to render a decent image.
these were handled individually as were the
painting-filters. sure to be a collectors'
(socio-anthropologists') item! an amazing and compelling,
collective portrait! the interspersed military/gangster
imagery (or maybe something else), also introduces a new
spin on the hopes for this already tenuous social-media
culture. I've had to organize/sub-divide these in some
fashion, so by state/country seems to be the prevailing
approach. California had to be the place to begin. and given
how often workers are compelled to move around, there's more
of a local difference in cultural self-perception, body
language, and social-sexual proclivity than you might
expect. it really is a perhaps overlooked (overly-present),
socially significant era when a massive proportion of the
population is able to individually exorcise their
self-imagery instead of being routinely dependent on
existing systematized systems of portraiture and
presentation -- which is not to say that it's entirely free
from stylistic-cultural-corporate constraints and
codification (and why, for now at least, I left the imagery
in a nearly random arrangement within each national/state
sub-division), but the individual, probably for the first
time ever, is seen freely negotiating a shifting porous
skein of varied reception... well, something like that...
but how could it possibly matter in this bigger world of
shuffled lies. the future of humanities: buy-now -- it's an
obviously exclusive, pointedly calculated, dismal, tired and
insular discussion that somehow sadly shuffles "the deadly
futures" of increasingly indebted/desperate privileged
artworld acolytes who are compelled to repay by recycling
received collegial/corporate diatribes...  not unlike
treacherously asking interrelated corrupt institutions such
as illegitimate States whether they have any future: who
will continue to profit and at what repercussive-peril for
the populace (?) -- and what can it now mean to cling to the
bandied, hollowed refrain of "we the people..."


PROXY Gallery 2009-2012
(an online zencart storefront)
http://bbrace.net/proxy.html
http://bradbrace.net/proxy.html



/:b