>> statement:

"After the novel, ... privileged narrative as the key form of cultural expression of the modern age, the computer age introduced its correlate -- the database. Many new media objects do not tell stories; they do not have a beginning or end; in fact, they do not have any development, thematically, formally, or otherwise that would organize their elements into a sequence. Instead, they are collections of individual items, with every item possessing the same significance as any other."
                 -- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media

Through the process of digitization, the representation of an item (be it text, image, or sound) is converted from the continuous flow of words, color, or waves to discrete units of data. Through this conversion process, nuances of information are undeniably lost. However, a new language begins to emerge as this data is reordered according to alternative structures of logic. Through her digital installation "Story" and selected works inspired by her summer residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Karin Horlbeck begins to examine the elusiveness of textual and visual communication when it is permuted within this digital database "vocabulary."

>> bio:

Karin Horlbeck received an MFA in Photography and Digital Imaging at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland in 2002. She has taught courses in Digital and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art, the University of Maryland, and workshops at Johns Hopkins University. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in Washington D.C., St. Louis, Baltimore, Boston, and Mandelieu, France. As the 2002 Maryland Fellow, Karin was in residence at the Fine Arts Work Center for the months of June and July, 2002.