Conversion Pixel

Conversion Pixel', 2014 documents how a group of artists, curators, and critics react to abstract images in targeted banner advertisements.The abstract compositions are grouped by campaign, with titles such as 'Monochromes', 'Gradients', 'Oil Strokes', 'Gradient Oil', and 'Sunrise'. The site shows clicks, reach, impressions, click-through rate, cost-per-click, and amount spent for each campaign. New images are generated based on the colours and textures of those with the highest number of clicks and outputs become more complex with each new campaign. Lund draws parallels between the way that an image 'converts' its passive subject into an active one and the transactions that bestow legitimacy and critical value on a contemporary artwork. 'Conversion Pixel' is transparent in the sense that it presents the broad-ranging analytics behind its display but stops short of disclosing the identities of its 'taste-makers'.

The work echoes 'Studio Practice', created later in 2014, in which an advisory board including collectors, dealers, auction house directors, and curators recommended whether works, produced live during the period of the exhibition by a team of four assistants, should be signed or destroyed. 'Conversion Pixel's 'survival of the fittest' instead takes place entirely within the online attention economy, powered by the tools of the digital marketplace. In each case Lund activates the input mechanisms native to the space in which his project operates, conflating arts patronage and investment with the commercial interests targeted by digital and analog marketing.

'Conversion Pixel', 2014 was one of four commissions launched on The Moving Museum Online following the The Moving Museum Istanbul. The Moving Museum website was designed by Jeremy Bailey with Joe Hamilton, Harm van den Dorpel, and Jonas Lund.

Jonas Lund (b. 1984, Linköping) is an artist living and working in Amsterdam. He received his MFA from Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam and his BA from Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Selected solo exhibitions include New Shelter Plan, Copenhagen, DK; Steve Turner, Los Angeles, 2015; Boetzelaer|Nispen, Amsterdam, 2014; Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam; Galerie Van Gelder, Amsterdam, 2013. Recent group shows include ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2015; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 2015; Transmediale, Berlin, 2015; Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 2014; Witte De With, Rotterdam, 2014; Eyebeam, New York, 2013; XPO Gallery, Paris, 2013; De Hallen, Haarlem, 2013; Internet Week, New York, 2013; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, 2012; New Museum, New York, 2012; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2012. Lund has also spoken and performed at Rhizome, New York, 2014 and Barbican Centre, London, 2013, among others.

conversionpixel.net

See Lund's accompanying presentation for The Moving Museum Istanbul, 'VIP (Viewer Improved Painting)', 2014