ArtNetdlr Artist Talk with COLIN MARTIN

About the artist

Colin Martin is an artist and lecturer based in Dublin. He is currently Head of the Royal Hibernian Academy School and lectures part time in the NCAD Media Department.He is a graduate of TU Dublin and the National College of Art and Design and works in the medium of painting and film.

He has exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally and is a multiple recipient of the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary. His work is held in public and private collections including the Arts Council, University College Cork, Office of Public Works, Fingal Arts and the RHA.

Martin was elected a full member of the RHA in 2008.

"Colin Martins current practice explores boundaries between real and virtual world through both film and painting. His current project Empathy Lab is based on a dedicated area in Facebook headquarters were employees can express empathy through technology to various causes. This series of paintings explores a prosthetic relationship with technology. The practice makes reference to science fiction genres and imagined futures that have come to pass such as future orientated culture that has become obsolete or reappraised. The works depict computer museums, analogue recording equipment and modular electronic instruments. Some works depict pre-internet sites of surveillance such as the Berlin Stasi Museum and the geneses of a boundless surveillance culture were the politics of private and public space is fluid. The works explore spaces that blur boundaries between the real and virtual and where technology, culture and politics have become synthesised. Current works depict research and development from technology companies such as Boston Dynamics, Facebook and Tesla."