In An Internet of Things that Go Bump in the Night, Carl Diehl queries the “psycho-social externalities” of networked culture— examining unforeseen consequences and opportunities in the proliferation of mobile, network-enabled screens. Showcasing a series of compositions produced by the artist over the last eight years, the works in this exhibit trouble the habitual modes of technological consumption and perception, estranging and amplifying the mediating presence of mobile devices.

In the Landscape Anarchitecture series, a certain loss of one’s “sense of place” is addressed in relation to the increasing presence of competing, simultaneous environments that conflict with one’s perception of an immediate reality. Deliberately interfering with the illusions of spatial-temporal continuity made possible by realist modes of compositing, video sequences of suburban vistas are recast as sites, and sights, of psychological duress. Employing extensive digital de-composition, images of mundane backyard scenes and quiet neighborhoods are broken apart into discrete parts. Once separated, individual components are manipulated at frame-level and then realigned in accordance with their original spatial integrity. Temporally, the sequences of elements are intentionally desynchronized, quietly dislocated from their grounding in a singular sense of “here” and “now.”

The interventions present in Atempastoral Views, on the other hand, reveal glimpses of an idyllic scene. Imagining a new pastoral mode, one that caricatures an increasingly mediated and non-linear existence in contemporary networked cultures, Atempastoral Views advances an aesthetic experience of [asynch]romanticism. In these studies, a bucolic vista gains clarity in direct relation to the severity of temporal disorder — a provisional respite for a continually and partially attentive populace.

In the Modular Mythos series, the prescribed use and familiar modes of social interaction surrounding mobile phones is directly challenged. In these works, smartphone equipped visitors are prompted to search for and display visual components on their own network-enabled devices, physically arranging and visually annexing their own display screens to construct panoramic and polytyptic compositions. Although the mediating presence of digital devices is involved in this work, interactivity in this context privileges physical actions-necessitating social interaction and exchange within the immediate presence of the work.

Polterzeitgeist, a kaleidoscopic and satirical audio-visual screed, delivers insight and ultimatums on behalf of obsolescent forms of haunting. Amidst a relentless din of telecommunications noise and techno-social debacles, ghosts, poltergeists and other liminal beings are explicitly scrutinized in terms of their own hypothetically imperiled security in a networked economy.

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Carl Diehl | Biography

Born in Syracuse New York (1978), Carl Diehl holds a BFA in Art Video from Syracuse University (2000) and a MFA in Digital Art from the University of Oregon (2007). From 2000 to 2003 he was an events programmer at Artists’ Television Access, a media arts space in San Francisco, where he continues to volunteer remotely as a layout and copy editor. Diehl’s video essays, installations, performances and publications have been exhibited nationally and internationally at events including: Transmediale in Berlin, the International Symposium of Electronic Art in Singapore and the &Now Festival of New Writing in San Diego.

In 2014, with a grant from PICA’s Precipice Fund, Diehl has been working in collaboration with Adam and Rosalyn Rothstein to program and facilitate exhibits, workshops, performances and a research commons at Weird Shift Storefront, a center for marginalia studies located in North Portland.

Based in Portland, Oregon, Carl Diehl teaches courses in New Media Studies, History of the Moving Image and Experimental Video at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, the Northwest Film Center and Portland State University.

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