Window Online is pleased to present Changing Rooms: Peace, Love and Storage, a collaborative work between Melbourne based artists James Bowen and Oliver van der Lugt.

The artists’ project frames the internet as a domestic object that mediates a vast exterior for safe and comfortable navigation from the interior spaces of our homes. The artists juxtapose contemporary minimalist decor and everyday viewing devices – smartphones, screens, tablets – drawing attention to how technology furnishes living spaces. 

Changing Rooms references the influence of the minimalist movement on both luxury interior and technology design. Donald Judd sculptures and Mark Rothko paintings play into the minimal/sublime dialogue that is invested in the ornate objects of the bourgoise as well as increasingly accessible smart technology.

The work codes a vast amount of imagery onto one webpage where a user can scroll through large-scale compositions that slowly reveal themselves at the will of the user’s invested time and curiosity. Through engagement a gradient is revealed, sliding from elite capitalist dream zones to the haphazard cellars of hoarders and the obsessive bricolage of teenage bedrooms. This mode of viewing maps the differing trajectories of surface and deep web surfing, providing an improvised cyber geography, a partial answer to the question ‘what might the internet look like?'

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Oliver van der Lugt currently lives and works in Melbourne. He completed a BFA at Dunedin School of Art in 2010. Recent shows include __[SCREENERY]__ at tcb art inc, Melbourne, Australia (2013), Fury Road at Appendix, Portland, USA (2012), 2 storage solutions *NNPW* *OOAK*, rm, Auckland (2012), and Studio 6 Project 1, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia (2012).

James Bowen currently lives and works in Melbourne. He graduated from Massey University's School of Fine Arts in Wellington with an MFA (Distinction) in 2010. His recent shows include Pure Bloom at Gloria Knight, Auckland (2012, group), Breeder of the Leech at 19 Tory Street, Wellington (2012), and Force-Morph at Enjoy gallery, Wellington (2011).