Jon Rafman (*1981) is acclaimed for a multifaceted oeuvre that encompasses video, animation, photography, sculpture and installation. His quasi-anthropological works—often incorporating internet-sourced images and narrative material—investigate digital technologies and the communities they create, focusing on the losses, longings and fantasies that shape our technology-infused lives today. The Montreal-based artist turns an empathic but critical eye on the internet age, investigating experiences of alienation, nostalgia, loneliness and grief.
Jon Rafman, Sticky Drama, 2016
© Jon Rafman
© Jon Rafman
Shouldn't You Be Working? Home–Work
Group Exhibition
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing
Through December 17, 2023
Computers, the Internet, and mobile phones have enabled a variety of new labor practices, an unprecedented amount of which are situated within the home: White-collar home offices, self-employed social media influencers, the hidden labor of coders and offshore renderers now coexist with traditional domestic work by nannies, caretakers and homemakers. Digitization has brought previously unknown working conditions into our lives. They oscillate between a newfound freedom and increased personal expression, and the threat of total digital surveillance and exploitation. The boundaries between labor and leisure, now situated in the same spaces, are increasingly blurred.
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