Celebrated conceptual artist and 2019-20 Hodder Fellow at Princeton Ryan Gander reckons that nothing symbolizes the times we live in better than the selfie: the icon of a new kind of self-regard that hardly existed just ten years ago. But, as he discovers in this film, Me, My Selfie and I, its roots go back hundreds of years before smartphones, and this uniquely 21st century phenomenon is just the visible tip of a much much bigger iceberg — a radical reinvention of who we are powered by the very latest digital technology. It has not just changed how much we look at ourselves, but also transformed what we see in the screen when we do. Produced and directed by Sam Anthony. Followed by a Q&A with Gander.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
RYAN GANDER is an artist living and working in Suffolk and London. He has established an international reputation through artworks that materialize in many different forms from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance and more besides.
Through associative thought processes that connect the everyday and the esoteric, the overlooked and the commonplace, Gander’s work involves a questioning of language and knowledge, a reinvention of the modes of appearance and creation of an artwork. His work can be reminiscent of a puzzle, a network with multiple connections, the fragments of an embedded story, a huge set of hidden clues to be deciphered, encouraging viewers to make their own connections and invent their own narrative in order to solve the charade with its many solutions, staged by the artist.
Gander studied at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, NL and the Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, NL. He was awarded the 2007 Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Arts, in 2006 won the ABN AMRO prize of the Netherlands, in 2005 he was short listed for the British art Prize ‘Becks Futures’ at the ICA in London and won the Baloise Art Statement Prize at Art Basel, in 2009 he was awarded the Zürich Art Prize.
Alongside his artistic production, Gander is a visiting lecturer at a selection of art schools within Europe, previously being a Professor of Fine Arts at Huddersfield University, and has been presented the award of Doctor of Arts of the Manchester Metropolitan University, Honoris Causa, and at the University of Suffolk. In 2017 he was awarded an OBE for services to contemporary arts. In 2019 he was awarded the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University.
Alexander Street, between Lawrence Drive in Princeton and Canal Pointe Boulevard in West Windsor, will close for about six months beginning on Wednesday, November 6, 2019, for road construction.
Construction makes traveling to campus more time consuming. Traffic congestion from all routes to campus during peak times (weekdays, 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., and 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.) will be higher than normal. Drivers traveling to campus along Route 1 will see the greatest delays.
