The Lives of Others by Monica Marquez

As we all know Monica Marquez is icscis/walkthearts’ project manager.  Her last show in Ottawa provoked much discussion within the artist and gallery community, the purpose of art. As a result, Monica’s works are featured as the main topic of the very last issue of Guerilla art magazine, published in Canada’s capital, Ottawa; the centerfold being dedicated to her works. What follows are a few excerpts taken from Tony Martin’s article.

“The strangers, for whom I created a total new identity, became characters of Facebook,” explains Márquez, who is a Colombian-Canadian painter, photographer, and digital artist based in the Ottawa region since 2001. She joined Facebook last year to communicate with her family but quickly found that this particular online world contained abundant fodder for psychological and sociological exploration.

“On social networks there is self-marketing, which includes our search for the perfect promotional image that obliges us to conceal our own reality, our real image,” Márquez points out.

“By publishing only carefully selected photographs taken during short moments of joy and fleeting glory, and by increasing one’s collection of ‘friends,’ it is possible to construct a totally new identity quite removed from one’s everyday nature,” Márquez notes.

You may read the whole article at : http://www.getguerilla.ca/