With Hard Copy, NOME presents Matthew Plummer-Fernandez’s first solo exhibition.
The show challenges familiar notions of copyright and questions the point at which an original copyright ends and where a newfound ‘copyleft’ freedom might begin. Plummer-Fernandez shows a series of new sculptures, all of them derived from 3D models of popular cartoon characters that the artist found online. Created by their respective fans and available for anyone to download, the models have been distorted, rearranged and printed as sculptures.
As part of a process to disguise the original 3D models of the sculptures, each has been encoded into an image file using software created by the artist. The software is in fact a copyright circumvention tool, making it more difficult to enforce copyright restrictions, thereby enabling the free sharing of knowledge. The images will be displayed as prints alongside the sculptures.
Matthew Plummer-Fernandez is a British Colombian artist who critically and playfully examines sociocultural entanglements with technologies. His current interests span algorithms, bots, automation, copyright, and file-sharing. Plummer-Fernandez’s artworks have been presented in group shows at international art institutions and festivals such as The Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Ars Electronica, Linz and FACT Liverpool. He received the Award of Distinction at the Prix Ars Electronica in 2014. Matthew Plummer-Fernandez lives and works in London.