Lauren Comito: New Editions
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5th, 2015
Michael Steinberg and Eminence Grise Editions proudly announce the publication of new works by Lauren Comito. Comito’s work incorporates the use of technology and everyday ephemera that is habitually utilized by a mass audience. Specifically her work looks closely at the way images are created, retrieved, circulated and stored.
This body of work is inspired by the correlation between the world of advertising and memory, in particular Edward Bernays’ development of public relations. Employing Sigmund Freud’s writings on psychoanalysis, Bernays paved the way for the world of marketing and advertising through his use of focus groups, which investigated people’s emotional connections to products. Comito mines her own archive of personal digital photography of places she has lived, pairing different packaging containers that came from goods or consumables she associated with that place. Her work alternates between traditional art marking techniques and digital processes. These incorporate barcodes and QR codes that transport the viewer back into the digital realm.
In providing further explanation, Lauren Comito states: “I decided to embed visual QR codes into the prints to incorporate a digital extension to be initiated by the viewer. Any willing participant can scan these codes to create a further exchange of information, a sort of transaction. The viewer can reflect and project their own narratives onto both the video and physical work before them.”
The QR codes used by Comito are linked to various types of media, including stop motion animations, image slideshows and video. The barcodes are also linked to the actual products purchased. QR code and barcode function doubly in Comito’s work, as a gateway to layers of personal history, and as a formal visual pattern. Comito notes that visual codes of this type have an indeterminate lifespan, which mirrors the ebb and flow of information content in social media.
Lauren Comito currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design. Recent exhibitions include a two-person exhibition at Projekt 722, Brooklyn and a solo exhibition at Slag Gallery, Brooklyn.
Eminence Grise Editions is the publishing division of Michael Steinberg Fine Art. This new venture will continue Michael Steinberg’s long-term commitment to innovative editions by contemporary artists. Among the recent publications are works by Derrick Adams, Ok Hyun Ahn, Lauren Comito, Yevgeniy Fiks, and Sandrine Guerin.
Philadelphia Containers, 2015, pigment print with QR codes and barcodes on Hot Press, 20 x 24 in, Edition of 18