The Scriptures: 

#I The Icon cannot exist without reverence. It is a delicate being, susceptible to expiration if it does not offer a regular Spectacle to an exponentially gratified & enlarging audience.

#II We see the Icon through lenses – a barrier to protect against unwanted intimacy from the very Spectators to which it aims to reveal itself in gratuitous exhibition. The lenses imply transparency, while serving to filter, mislead & distract from the Icon’s innate social inadequacies. The more lenses the Icon applies, the further & more protected it is from reality.

#III The Icon is fortified in an attire of borrowed skin (or morally justified skin alternatives) allowing it to masquerade as the previous inhabitant. The topical application makes the Icon look cool enough to warrant the acquisition of followers, validation, & ideally sponsorship from the animal in question.

#IV Though relatable in its humanoid appearance, the Icon resembles a Mannerist form. Modified & idealised through post-production, for the sake of aesthetic composition over biological viability. The resulting form has an appeal to followers, who find the manufactured body to be more god-like, & as a result easier to believe. An Icon that appears as too anatomically correct is likely to be received as an undesirable “nobody”.

#V The Icon presents itself to spectators as a Guru, dispensing wisdom with a by-product of awe, however the lens through which the Icon is seen is opposingly flopped in selfie mode, changing the dynamics of the scene. Without the lens amendments, it is apparent that the Icon is solely a dispenser of awe, & the perceived wisdom is in fact the by-product.

NB: The lens notoriously adds ten pounds (4.536 kg) to make the wisdom appear bigger than it actually is.

#VI The Icon’s ability to produce awe is limitless, provided that trace wisdoms can be acquired regularly from external sources, to be processed & amplified as a source of fuel – a little goes a long way. The Icon extracts & appropriates these wisdoms from other Icons it professes to hold in regard, or, in an act of noblesse oblige, from the Sapient (literally meaning wise, or attempting to appear wise) – those of a lower caste who follow & submit themselves to the Icon in their attempts to become Icons themselves.

#VII The Icon shows magnanimity in triumph by the token anointing of select Sapients in a pyramid strategy of trickle down praise, to strengthen the foundation on which the Icon rises up.

#VIII It is common for Icons to work in communion with others who hold similar appeal & mass following, revering one another in the manner of back-scratching, & keeping rivals & enemies close.

#IX The Icon is self-aware, self-conscious, & pre-approving of itself by having witnessed its own spectacle by means of second order observation. An Icon exists only through approval, if not directly from spectators, then from itself as the “Royal We”.

#X Every action the Icon displays is intended, whether it was, or wasn’t. If it is, it was meant. Every action is acknowledged & justified, & if deemed unfavourable – apologised for as being a mistake caused by external parties.

#XI At times the Icon appears contrived & tense, but decidedly good-looking enough to disperse its effigy in that state. At other times the Icon appears relaxed, & though apparently candid, the Icon is just as contrived – possibly more so, as these expressions are harder to get right without looking disingenuous. When the Icon achieves this coveted skill, spectators respond with praise, shares, & the summoning of new followers.

#XII The Icon performs gestures, pre-validated by previous Icons’ use, which it appropriates as its own. In the case that the gesture is retrospectively original, it shall be likened, & liked, as a simile of the closest pre-validated gesture.

#XIII The way the Icon appears is the way the Icon is in entirety. The symbolisms it uses are integrated as part of the Icon, & their meanings are reduced to apparatuses of composition, & hashtags.

#XIV The Icon is just like you and me, but not like all the others. The Icon is different – just like us. The Icon is a perfect entity & one to aspire to, yet relatable by admitting ownership of its flaws which it conquered by its own authorship. The Icon parades this conquest with the promise of divulging the secret of its success to those who pledge allegiance by liking & subscribing.

#XV The Icon is forever in a state of ado. Its modus operandi requires it summarises & concludes its Spectacle without further ado, just as it begins its Spectacle – without further ado. The Icon’s ado requires frequent cessation at any given phase of the Spectacle

#XVI The Icon appears as culturally aware, deep in original thought, & worldly opinion, professing its ambivalence as to whether spectators should care, while musing altruistic hypotheses of how they should better themselves to reach the Icon’s pinnacle of accomplishment.

#XVII The Icon displays objects that spectators are encouraged to acquire, such as innovative lenses or additional skins, so that spectators can appropriately adorn their endeavour to become Icons themselves – provided they purchase the promoted products with the Icon’s discount code.

#XVIII The Icon is the most coveted objective of any spectator – to witness in order to become, to emulate in order to be discovered as a unique Spectacle. Timeless, yet cutting edge. Worshipped, yet relatable. Mysterious, yet understood.

#XIX The prime objective of the Icon is to be the Icon.

#XX At the Icon’s disgrace &/or demise, a new Icon inevitably & automatically exists. With a perpetual supply of fresher, sexier, cutting-edgier, more provocative, more sponsored, more liked, & more spectacular prospective Icons – with more novel & innovative lenses, there is always an Icon.

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Artist’s statement:

In my struggle to grasp the use of social media to promote my work as an unrepresented artist, I would spend an hour every day examining profiles and watching tutorials about how it’s done. I observed a variety of influencers and lesser-knowns flex their public display in varying levels of performances, and found myself unable to reproduce this seemingly attainable goal without resorting to the use of contrived, though apparently vital additives – like ritualistic greetings, recurring poses, pointing at off-screen buttons as if the influencer lived inside the viewer’s device, and using the term “without further ado” prematurely and with abandon.

Watching the grand system at work from the unconvinced outside, I found similarities with my experience of organised religion – with its symbols, gestures and rituals, references of the debatable past, repeated chorus-like phrases, and icons – a corresponding equivalent of religion in our age of capitalistic imagery.

I was raised under a religious application, though I couldn’t shake my constant awareness of the practice as being laden with procedures that felt artificial and unnecessary – yet the common behaviour surrounding it was imposed as being just the way it works.

As a child, I wanted to be religious because everyone else I knew appeared to be, and whenever they waved their team flags, they would be praised. I believed my life would have been so much easier if only I was religious too, yet there was just no sense in it to me, and I forwent religion as soon as I was able.

Decades later, I discovered myself experiencing exactly the same trouble with social media participation. I see people flourishing in this contrived system – which is nothing if not curious to me, so I decided to make a collection of paintings to condense my interpretation of these similarities into a body of work with a focus on the Icon as a Spectacle.

My research led me to look into the cultural functions of religion, and philosophies related to social media – such as Second order observation, “Profilicity”, and Situationist theories which rang uncanny to my theme.

It’s important to know that I am not an expert in theology or social studies. I learnt only what I needed to extract my concept from my head. The culture that I conceived, and represent in #Iconograph, is the way that my being naturally juxtaposes social media with religion – as someone who has been strongly encouraged to embrace both, but struggles to grasp either.

The show does not come from a cynical place, though it has become satirical at times, as I allowed my interpretations to merge with humour where I found it.

Sunglasses feature in the paintings as reoccurring motifs, and visually represent the lenses described in the scripture. These lenses symbolise the optical path through which the Icon can be witnessed – such as cameras, post-production filters, and device screens.

The referral to “fortifying skins” symbolises the desire for brand sponsorship, which I’ve depicted in the form of leather jackets and exterior apparel.

The motif of god rays and halos show the omnipotence of the Icon, as existing on an otherworldly plane, which I painted in iridescent black and white to represent the division of social outlooks – to “like” or “dislike”.

Each piece is bordered in red – a component taken from Orthodox iconography, the “Alpha Line” (the start), while the finishing “Omega Line” (traditionally appearing alongside) has been strategically omitted to symbolise the postmodern trait of referencing the past.

The Icon’s subject periodically changes to represent each particular Icon’s social relevance, and the Icon’s size, to show its rank in popularity. The Icon is otherwise anonymous and interchangeable, as a democratically disposable god within the limits of social technology.

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Bio:

Dita Angeles is a portraitiste (with French spelling) who creates uncanny depictions of real, imagined, & archetypal subjects in either oil painting or photography. Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, with a BFA in painting from Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design, 2004. She took her practice to Seoul, Korea for a decade, Hong Kong for a further 5 years, Brisbane, Australia for 3, and is currently somewhere in French Polynesia. As an outsider for so much other life, her fascination with individuals and how people are perceived has become an exponential endeavour, and her works can be found at www.ditaangeles.com and on Instagram at @ditaangeles