Charlie Lochert

DIGITAL SKIN

(she/they)
Charlie is a Naarm-based artist

working on the land of the Wurundjeri people. Starting their practice as a fine art painter, Charlie now explores new media with a focus on hybrid retro-future technologies, creating installations that consider feelings of complex identity. Through their queer and neurodivergent lens, they construct a new perspective of camp science fiction aesthetics in the age of neo-transhumanism. Charlie attempts to qualify the contradictory complexities of one’s relationship with a digital echo.

Digital Skin is an interactive installation project, utilising face identification technology and cathode-ray tube output that allows for an image to respond to an audience’s facial expressions. Working in spaces of queer and neurodivergent theory, the artist Charlie creates work that evokes conversations about identity and invisible transhumanism. 

Digital Skin is built from a menagerie of diverse technologies. The work investigates the complex veils of identity created when we find ourselves in an age of virtual performance. The screen portrait intentionally utilises the semiotics of masks to highlight the alternative self; making reference to the queering transformation of drag performers, the computerised uncanny of digital renders, and the cinematic history of science fiction horror. Our digital devices have become an integral augmentation to our day-to-day functionality without ever needing a physical attachment. Digital Skin considers the black mirrored reflection of technological devices, hoping one can relate to the interactive digital portrait literally as well as metaphorically.

instagram.com/charlie.lochert/