Modernly Antique

          After doing research and collecting a lot of information on Evan Baden, I definitely feel like I now understand his outlook on new media art. Evan Baden is young, at age 26, he is only five years older than I am. He continues to successfully exhibit his undergraduate body of work, as well as his current body of work-oftentimes around the world. I feel slightly unsuccessful knowing how much he completed by the time he reached where I am in school! I'm joking of course, slightly. I really appreciated the fact that Evan Baden still uses a film camera, a Canham 4x5, to be exact. I feel like he produces formally and aesthetically beautiful images using the hybrid method of film negatives scanned into Photoshop. Process aside, I very much enjoyed researching Evan Baden. His two main bodies of work deal with how technology affects the youth of today. When I was in my first darkroom photography class, almost every project I completed involved technology as a large part of my subject matter. I was able to identify with Evan Baden's concepts, as well as think very deeply about how technology has affected the way I personally have grown up. I am referring specifically to The Illuminati series, which depicts youths blankly staring at technology, bathed in an ethereal light. He exhibits with other modern artists, including Ai Weiwei and Kalup Linzy, but he really doesn't have a lot in common with them, artistically. I think his critique of youth and technology has a lot more in common with Ryan Trecartin. If Evan Baden continues to produce works and builds off of the concepts he has already produced, I am sure his place as a new media artist will only continue to be assured.