CORINNA BERNDT
“NOT BORN DIGITAL”
21 JANUARY – 19 FEBRUARY 2021

Corinna Berndt, jpg fossils, digital collage, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Exploring myths surrounding the transformation from physical to intangible data, “Not Born Digital” questions concepts of value, narrative, database and language produced by interactions with digital technology. Arguably, processes of digital hoarding— or the de-materialisation of physical possessions, and their transformation into digital assemblages—suggest implied narratives that are somehow embedded within the material world. The exhibition reimagines these narratives that might emerge in digital record keeping through speculating upon their continuous relationship to the material world. "Not Born Digital” explores the potential of digital scanning to enable a hybrid materialisation of bodied and disembodied information. By extension, this process also invites an examination of the kind of languages, grammars and poetics that potentially govern these hybrid forms.

Corinna Berndt, Remnants of Gravity, bronze, air drying clay, dimensions variable, 2020. Photography by Zan Wimberley

Exhibition text
Roomsheet

BIOGRAPHY

Corinna Berndt lives and works in Melbourne on unceded Wurundjeri land.

Her practice incorporates digital media, video installation and collage. Influenced by her background in sculpture and spatial practice, her work addresses pre-conceived notions surrounding embodiment, materiality and disembodiment, when navigating the digital realm. Through experimenting with glitched media, poetics and fabulations, Berndt explores the various personal and often mythologised relationships that appear to continuously resurface between physical matter and seemingly intangible, digitalised information. Berndt is currently undertaking a PhD at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Her research reflects upon generational perceptions of the potentialities and implications of digital technologies in the Western cultural imaginary.

 Exhibitions and projects include:

‘Streaming data is the ultimate trust exercise with the moon’ Somos Arts House, Berlin, 2019; ‘Topographic Resolutions II’, Kuiper Projects, Brisbane, (curated by Kyle Wise 2019); ‘Our Selves’, Ctrl+Shft Collective, Oakland, USA (curated by Frances Fleetwood, 2017); ‘Elapse’ Rosney Schoolhouse Gallery, as part of Hobienniale 2017, Hobart, (curated by Kings Ari); MCA ARTBAR, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (curated by Julia Gorman, 2017); ‘Traveling the Alpha Layer’, with Youjia Lu and Kellie Wells, Counihan Gallery, Brunswick, Melbourne (2018), ‘Five Cents Cinema’ Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne Town Hall (curated by Paula van Beek, 2016).

Corinna Berndt, “Not Born Digital”, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

IN CONVERSATION WITH CORINNA BERNDT
DIGITAL HOARDING 

“I came across the concept when listening to a radio show. The program discussed that apparently amongst my generation and younger generations, material possession was in decline, which was put into contrast with the apparent tendency of owning excessive amounts of digitally stored documents. The radio show referred to this phenomenon as digital hoarding, which according to the discussion, indicated a moving away from a material focused concept of ‘belongings’. I got particularly interested in the idea of digitalised memories which appeared to make up most of the discussed digital
hoarding.“

Corinna Berndt

In conversation with Corinna Berndt and Tesha Malott

Corinna Berndt, Image of a stone that fell out of the sky in 1868, photographic print, 20 x 30cm, 2020. Photography: Zan Wimberley.