The New Aesthetic

“An Internet year is like the span of 10 generations,” the artist Jon Rafman explains. It’s sort of like dog years, some strange experiential kink that has to do not only with just how much media we see now every day—and, consequently, how fast we have to process it all—but also with the unprecedented ability our digital tools give us to remix and re-use, to not just pay homage to works of art that inspire us but to appropriate and transform them directly. […]

The ongoing project began two years ago, developing “out of a newfound love for working with my hands,” Rafman explains. But that doesn’t mean painting or sculpting in the traditional sense—“Not my real hands,” he clarifies. “My virtual hands.” What emerged was a series of busts, variously deformed and distorted, rendered in diverse digital materials. One looks like a block of ice with the face crudely chiseled away; another like a human head rendered in solid gold, and then dropped from the observation deck of a tall building.

7 | Greek Busts, Reskinned For The Digital Age | Co.Design: business innovation design