Graham Lister (Glasgow School of Art): The Painter of Altermodern Life

Altermodernity, as positioned by Micheal Hardt, Antonio Negri (Commonwealth, 2009) and by Nicolas Bourriaud (Altermodern, 2009), represents an ‘other’ modernity, suitable to describe emerging experiences with contemporary networked society.1 ‘The Painter of Altermodern Life’ is a poster presentation which highlights links between the tenets of altermodernism and the complex blend of physical and virtual networks which are ever more integrated into everyday life.

Stemming from my ongoing investigations into the use of representational painting practice to interrogate spatial experiences which tend toward the virtual, this work demonstrates the ways in which process-based outcomes aid articulation and visualisation of dematerialised culture. ‘The Painter of Altermodern Life’ is positioned to showcase how the contemporary creative practitioner exists at the locus of the immaterial virtual apparatus. This short paper considers the liminal aspects networked experience and the ways in which the use of the Manual Castell’s ‘space of flows’ necessitates engagement with fragments of informational material.
Included as part of this endeavour are new painted works relating specifically to a simultaneous, hybrid engagement with digitally mapped and physically documented spaces and places. This paper highlights the oscillation between physical and virtual materials which characterise altermodern life.

Crucially, it effectively outlines a framework for how practice-based research can unpack the ways in which emerging experiences of user-centric, digitally coded material can be interestingly and usefully made manifest.