HOW TO HOW TO HOW TO by Gretchen Andrew

HOW TO HOW TO HOW TO is an attempt to question the claims of technology-enabled change as well as to investigate what, beyond effort and access to information, limits our capacity for change. The work deals with associated questions of genetic, social, family, and class privilege. The work has been developed by using YouTube “how To” searches to investigate the link between discrete, learnable actions and notions of identity. The works take the form of recorded performance of YouTube-learned actions, each associated with learning how to do or become something unfamiliar. The resulting performative experiences have been translated into digital .gif file. The .gif with its repetitive loop is used medium to suggest and question the notion of “practice makes perfect.” The gif versions of myself endlessly attempt to do splits, walk in high heels, and prepare a body for burial even as my physical body is distracted or exhausted. My .gif selves exist in a world where time, energy, and motivation appear to be only limitations to success. The complete work comprises 70 .gif files from which themes develop, each dealing with the questions what you can and cannot learn, and by way of learning become, through time + persistence + YouTube “How to” searches.

Gretchen Andrew (b California. 1988) started painting in San Francisco after becoming convinced that the internet can teach you anything. Her practice incorporates traditional oil painting and related investigations of knowing and becoming. She has completed projects or exhibitions with The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, The V&A Museum, The British Film Institute, The Lumen Prize for Digital Art, The British Arts Council, and The White Building. She trains in London with the artist Billy Childish.

Arebyte Gallery is a young contemporary space dedicated to New Media and Performance Art located in East London. Its mission is to become the UK’s most experimental and spontaneous practice-centred gallery. Since 2014 they gallery has developed 25 artists through our unique curation and commissioning process; inviting artists for a month long residency, where the projects come to life; evolving the idea through research, experimentation and relational work with live audiences; and then developing a project or solo/group exhibition.

Tip

Tip