Colin Martins current practice explores boundaries between real and virtual world through both film and painting. His current project Empathy Lab is based on a dedicated area in Facebook headquarters were employees can express empathy through technology to various causes. This series of paintings explores a prosthetic relationship with technology. The practice makes reference to science fiction genres and imagined futures that have come to pass such as future orientated culture that has become obsolete or reappraised. The works depict computer museums, analogue recording equipment and modular electronic instruments. Some works depict pre-internet sites of surveillance such as the Berlin Stasi Museum and the geneses of a boundless surveillance culture were the politics of private and public space is fluid. The works explore spaces that blur boundaries between the real and virtual and where technology, culture and politics have become synthesised. Current works depict research and development from technology companies such as Boston Dynamics, Facebook and Tesla.
Colin Martin is an artist and lecturer based in Dublin. He is currently Head of the RHA School and lectures part time in the NCAD Media Department. He is a graduate of DIT and NCAD and works in the medium of painting and film. Recent solo exhibitions include Keyframe, Platform Arts, Belfast, 2014, Collection, City Assembly Building, Dublin, 2012, The Garden, curated by Kate Strain, Broadcast Gallery, DIT, Dublin, 2011, Cyclorama, Basic Space, Dublin. Recent group exhibitions include Surveille.e.s CCI Paris, curated by Nora Hickey,,House Taken Over, Private House, Belfast 2018 ,This is Not Architecture, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda 2017, Far From Me, Josef Fillip Gallery, Leipzig ,N.O.W.H.E.R.E.,Interview Room 11, Edinburgh 2016. He has received the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary in 2015, 2012 and 2007
