'Surface: Skin & Scab—Porous Virality:' An Interview with Claudia Bitrán

With Claudia’s work, I always find myself compelled by a push and pull; she has a knack for pointing to media moments that breed consumption both ways: the viewer consumes the image, and the image consumes the viewers. This is a consistent theme in her oeuvre, which has, over the course of a decade, often engaged with iconic media from films such as Titanic to the music videos of Britney Spears. However, Claudia engages with her scavenged material with a sense of tender awareness of her role as an additional disseminator, a filter, and vessel of transformation for these images. In her most recent show, Stereotypies, at Cristin Tierney Gallery, fragments of Be Drunk and new watercolor animations collide with Bitrán’s ongoing engagement with Britney Spears. The combination, though uncanny, results in a timely two-way mirror. Though Britney is easily identified amongst the otherwise anonymous subjects, Bitrán raises a question about viewership. As Bitrán abstracts recycled media, she offers a space of doubt. Pushing beyond the real, Bitrán approaches these viral documents as opportunities for active engagement: ways to advance beyond the digital skin and interrogate the images of our consumption.