In the era of social networking, we are as much defined by our online personas and chosen media platforms as we are by how we carry ourselves in real life. Whether it be through Twitter, Facebook, or Foursquare, decreasing levels of privacy necessitate that we moderate the ways we speak and behave online. These sites also inform our representations in the culture and news at large by plugging us in to how information is processed and spread.Sergio Albiac seeks to challenge that notion through a new generative art work called “You Are Not In the News”. The artist explains that his work “revolves around the interior worlds we create in our minds, and the tensions that arise when confronted with our realities. The illusion of control in a world much governed by randomness and the elusive nature of emotions are also recurring ideas in my work.”It is a deeply ironic work, not just for its appropriation of a medium that many claim is in its death throes due to digital technology, but also for the specter-like imagery that results. The faces that manifest themselves in the generated newspaper look as if they are ghosts haunting the scattered, pixelated newspaper refuse. The lingering presence of each individual suggests a moderated version of the self that is not quite lost, but is rather reconstructed abstractly from the material. While the faces in the work are, in fact, in the news, it is only in a very superficial manner that is constructed in a randomized, albeit programmed way.The random potential for human interaction as represented by the generative art forms is engaged in dialectic processing through a technologically mediated world that is constantly being renegotiated. The authentic individual continues to persist in his relationship with these forms and mediums as well as the stories he publishes. As such, we are continually being redefined, by not only the news that surrounds us, but by the stories we generate ourselves.
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