Student Spotlight: Ethan Edwards ‘19
The Student Spotlight series aims to highlight the work of current MFA students, asking them to share thoughts on their practice by answering curated and peer-submitted questions.
Ethan Edwards ‘19 is a Sound Art student in his second year.
What themes or subjects are you currently addressing in your work?
I am continuing my exploration of how new technological media can be used for subtle aesthetic expression. Recently, I have particularly focused on the nature of memory and history, and how the past can still be present even when things seem forgotten. Technological media rushes forward so quickly and discards the past as irrelevant, yet because of this, it particularly is haunted by the ghosts of what it attempts to replace.
What materials are you working with at the moment?
I am working with digital technologies applied to several different media. My various interactive pieces are meant to be used on smartphone devices or laptops which are easily accessible, so that my work can be distributed online. I have also recently been focusing on photography and video work made through digital means.
Are there any themes or materials you’re interested in exploring in the future?
I will be attempting to dive deeper into various methods of presenting text-based narrative. I’ve been researching the history of manuscripts as well as non-linear text generation. I hope to bring forth new forms of narrative presentation based on recent advances in accessible augmented reality.
What challenges do you face in your practice?
The greatest challenge I regularly grapple with is the question of the permanence of digital works. A great amount of work made with emerging technology is highly democratic in its distribution channels, yet very quickly becomes unusable due to rapidly evolving systems. Some of the great early works of interactive art made on computers is already lost to obsolescence. Thinking about the life of a piece involves doing a lot of prediction of how people will interact with art and its media in the future.
Who are artists or works of art that inspire you? Who are contemporary artists that are doing interesting work?
I find several recent artists attempting to use machine learning techniques to be highly inspiring. These strategies offer a lot of aesthetic challenges as well as compelling work. In particular, the images of Mario Klingemann manage to consistently move me and come from a newly possible fusion of collage and surrealism.
What has been your favorite class at Columbia so far?
The classes I’ve most enjoyed at Columbia have been Brad Garton’s seminars on music technology. The classes introduce a lot of different tools for artists as well as different ways of conceptualizing what it means to make music.
How do you think artists can continue growing as artists?
The most important part of growing as an artist is not to become too fixed in one method of working. It is too easy to stop at the one thing which earns you praise from your peers; it is important to press on with your aesthetic development even if you get some pushback.
