From his website:

Since graduating from Central St Martins in 2006, the focus has been to explore how technological advancement is affecting society. Throughout history, information has always been recorded on physical objects. Important documents, favourite songs, videos and more were stored on mountains of tapes, polaroids, cassettes and disks. As media is rapidly absorbed into the World Wide Web the rich variety of formats of the past are becoming obsolete. This represents a big shift away from physical, real world objects, driving towards a human existence that is ultimately governed by billions of intangible data files. This release of information from the physical form allows personal data and identities to now be revealed and infinitely shared online. At the same time many of us consider individuality and privacy to be more precious than ever. Will humans be forever compatible with our own technology? Each floppy disk used in the paintings has a history and story of its own. It represents the increasing pace of the modern life cycle, where objects are created, used and disposed of quicker than ever. To challenge this notion, as these personal artefacts of life are cast aside, the obsolete are now given new life and a renewed purpose by using them as a medium for art.

The Questions:

I was really exited about mailing Nick Gentry to get some more information about his work and inspiration. At first I thought it would be easy, but when I was writing the email and had to come up with the questions it was a lot harder than I thought.

Eventually I came up with seven questions. Nick wrote me a email with one long answer, so i’ll put the questions here, and leave his answer in one piece.

1. Can you tell us some more about your life? Biography Like.
2. How did you come up with floppy discs and tapes?
3. Is there an enviremental statement you wan’t to make? Since you are reusing floppy disks and tapes?
4. The portraits you paint, are that imaginary people or do you use models?
5. Is there a message in you work?
6. Have you tried other styles and art forms?
7. What about the future?

Nick Gentry’s answer:

Floppy disks, VHS tapes, polaroids and audio cassettes. As a child growing up in the 80s and 90s this combination played a massive part in how I learned about the world. Favourite films, albums, games and even personal recordings were all stored on there. The whole world was totally reliant on these physical media formats. Now suddenly we are at a time where they are obsolete, replaced by countless intangible data files. As information is released from the physical form it allows personal data and identities to now be revealed and infinitely shared online. At the same time many of us consider individuality and privacy to be more precious than ever. Will humans be forever compatible with our own technology? In my work I want to simply highlight this new movement, as I believe it to be an important cultural and social transition of our time.

Last year while travelling in Brazil I went to a Vik Muniz exhibition and I was amazed by his use of media. Every piece of material he uses is considered and appropriate to the subject matter. The piece that really stuck with me was a giant world map made up entirely of old computer parts. I started to look at floppy disks and the importance that they have had on the development of our data-driven world.

My first piece of work using floppy disks as a canvas was an image of a fingerprint. To me, this connected the data world with the human physical form using the theme of identity, albeit in an obvious way. After that I looked at using the disks in a grid to create photo-fits, constructing imaginary faces and identities that could draw connections to the personal information stored on the disks.

By chance I found that the metal circular hub on the reverse side of the disk worked well as a metaphor for the human eye. This development was quite important to me, as the eyes of a person can reveal their identity and inner feelings. In the film Blade Runner they use the Voight-Kampff test, which gauges the reaction of the eyes to a set of carefully selected questions in order to determine if the subject is human or android. I sometimes like to cross out or obscure the eyes, as if to somehow protect the identity of the subject.

I always try and get people to donate the disks and tapes to me but usually I have to buy them online. Over the years billions upon billions of disks and tapes have been manufactured and today they are widely regarded as junk. This makes them an affordable thing to make art with. Maybe in time they will become very rare and the opportunity for creating art in this way will have passed. Reusing objects that would ordinarily have been sent to landfill makes a comment on the throwaway culture of today. Maybe this work can encourage people to think more creatively about the objects that are deemed to be obsolete or useless. Everything has a life cycle and we have become accustomed to look for the next shiny new thing once something has become slightly old and worn. This approach leads to a lot of waste and I think that reinventing something has more charm than things that are created from scratch. What brings the work to life is that blend of the nostalgic and familiar, together with the freshness of a new form of expression.

I live in Camden and work in my studio in Dalston, in East London. I find living in London to be very inspirational with the amazing mix of people that we have here.

More Work:

As always we can’t post all of an artists work here at our blog. But I made a selection of the things I liked most. Other work can be found at his website.