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Networked art by Garrett Lynch IRLAbout
Above: Generative adversarial network (GAN) portrait of the artist.
Garrett Lynch IRL is an artist, lecturer, curator and theorist. His work explores networks (in their most open sense) within an artistic context; the spaces between artist, artworks and audience as a means, site and context for artistic initiation, creation and discourse. Recently most active in performance Garrett’s networked practice spans online art, installation, performance and writing.
Post-graduate of interactive research at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD), Paris, France and PhD of networked art at South Bank University, London, England Garrett has taught on several new media courses throughout England and Wales. He is currently Senior Associate Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China. Details of his published research is available at ORCID and Humanities Commons.
Currently Garrett’s research and practice focus is exploring the thesis that networks are a transformative factor in contemporary art practice. How both cultural and technological developments in the latter half of the 20th century e.g. the dematerialisation (Lippard, 1997) of art as object, art as process (Alloway, 1972) and the adoption of a systems approach to a number of fields, have enabled practice to become above all concerned with relationship and behaviour. Art has always suggested connections to the world it is embedded within. Contemporary art continues to do this at a now hyper accelerated pace within a globalised cultural and social context (Castells, 2000), however, it can also facilitate actual connections through (new) media as discussed in new media theory. Relationships are produced as a result of connections, which enable performative scenarios. As a result of its key concerns this practice should be considered a networked practice and not defined by the media forms, which may or may not be its technical enabler or carrier.
These theories of practice have been developed over a number of years, notably as part of Garrett’s doctoral thesis, and are visualised as a diagrammatic Framework of Networked Art. More information about the framework can be viewed here and the doctoral thesis is available here.
Above: The Framework of Networked Art.