Homage to the
homage to the by Rafaël Rozendaal
Summary
"homage to the" is the title and domain name of an online artwork by Rafaël Rozendaal. The piece features endlessly moving squares that decrease in size from a larger to a smaller size, all the while moving through a gradient of exposure from black in the larger square to light grey in the smaller square. It's endlessly moving squares lock into an automated rhythm depicting a machined visual representation of an infinite space.
Critical Analysis
Rafaël has a heavily linked cultural context to his work - focusing primarily on digital spaces. "homage to the" is a play on words as the final domain name of the artwork (in its exhibition online via a URL) is "homagetothe.com" or "Homage to the .com" He takes a simplistic and minimalistic approach in appreciating the weight of the internet's dot. Its existence lives in a defaulted greyscale format in the millions of search bars and engines around the world. With the repeating movement it symbolizes the endless increase in both digital content and specifically internet domains. Constantly new pages, blogs, websites, graphics, and so on, are added to the internet - bringing with them another dot to the cyber space. Tactfully Rafaël has managed to take a single shape in a colourless environment and bring to the surface an almost forgotten yet recent colossal creation. As the internet's use transcends the role of a tool and marks its place on the lifestyle and personality of those using it, Rozendaal pays tribute through his artwork to the significance of such an overlooked item of language. The exhibition of his work alone relies heavily on the existence of this dot.
Exhibition
homage to the is one of many online artworks by Rafaël Rozendaal. Created as a website under the domain name homagetothe.com, Rafaël utilizes the internet space to talk about the internet itself. With its seemingly black hole of information and data storage, the amount of content being created is constant and endless. To display an art piece regarding the infinite scale of the internet and its content over the internet itself is an intimate gesture. As paying homage is significant in how it's paid, Rozendaal attracts viewers to his work and allows them to look at the space they're in for the space itself and not necessarily what is present in front of them onscreen directly - giving back to what allows him to do what he does.
homage to the, 2014. Online artwork by Rafaël Rozendaal