Bringing “the ephemeral world of the internet into physical spaces”, Andy Boot creates paintings and sculptures to reveal the complexity of the line between lived and online experiences. Drawing on art history, modernist concerns of materiality and form through the contemporary lens, Boot incorporates scratch-and-sniff stickers into his paintings and wire mesh replicating the background of GeoCities – a now-defunct web-hosting service –into his sculptures. Chance and coding, or decoding, intertwine in the artist’s work: in his work i.e. e who remained was M (2012) Boot threw noodles at the canvas to produce patterns, a process inspired by Spaghetti Spam which is a code used to camouflage spam emails. Whether suggesting an alternative realm of viewing, inspiring digital nostalgia or subjecting himself to the uncertainty of chance, Boot demonstrates the emotive complexity of our relationship with the Internet and its disembodied physicality.
Written by Goldsmiths CCA ...
