David Trautrimas ...itself, by an ellipsis
November 10 - December 2
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‘…itself, by an ellipsis’ is a line of text pulled from the Apple Human Interface guidelines, the earliest book published on human / computer interaction as experienced through a graphical user interface. The text refers to presenting an abbreviated version of unknown options to the user through the use of an ellipsis, a visual prompt to indicate a multitude of possibilities.
This body of work uses the ellipsis as a similar stand-in prompt for the unknowns that may profoundly affect human consciousness and the human body. In doing this, Itself, by an Ellipsis places our existence within simulation theory - that reality is artificial and we are a digital life within it. The connection posed by this abbreviation refers to our present human predicament, an existence teetering over an unknown with many multiple outcomes. In view of this, these works endeavor to reconcile the knowable self and the paradoxical influence of the other, solipsistic manifestations in a space where we may exist as endless iteration.
The works come from many places. Sometimes emerging through a process of synesthetic thought in moments of stillness, the eyes closed, the mind at rest.  We are formed by culture, though, and as such the works are both conjured and referential: images culled from the infinite image feed, icons of our identities saved from endless simulacra. The colours and patterns are derived from the fashions, short-lived innovations, and cultural icons of the 1990s, such as mall food courts, Ocean Pacific, Andre Agassi, hyper-colour fabrics. Together, the combinations of forms and objects are manifestations of déjà vu, death, and self-awareness; through them, I am attempting to put in order the bits and bytes of an ever-rebooting existence.