touching awe

Breanna Thompson

In the series Touching Awe, Thompson draws postures of bodies interacting with technology. In the combination of these drawings with references to historical imagery used to express awe, she proposes that how a body interacts with a device reflects how one might bow in prayer, or touch a pieta. Using woodcut and etching techniques to express contemporary devices, she physically bridges traditional and contemporary art making. Whether tributary of a religious paradigm or of one that is driven by information technology, our gestures can reflect power dynamics implicit to our interactions. Thompson is drawn to the spectacle in technology. She seeks to observe, in her life, the influence of the sense of awe it produces. Exhausted by incessant screen use, the rapid proliferation of novelty, and personal battles with escapism and excess, she is an artist caught somewhere in the questioning:  "what is the value of experience; how do I define value; and where is my body in a digital society?"