Young self-taught internet artist Erika Iris Simmons is known online as Iri5. She generally works with unconventional media, discarded items like old books or cut up credit cards which she loves as she feels that things from the past always retain an aura of their former glory. She has recently completed a series of portraits of iconic musicians and celebrities using only cassette tape with glue on canvas.
This series began life when she came across an old cassette of Jimi Hendrix. On unraveling the tape inside, she was reminded of his afro hairstyle. She continued from that point to the present with very impressive results. Interpreting a cassette as the human mind, the tape would be the memories, our thoughts. When using the tape as an art medium, the memories are formed into a recognizable face which is likely to jog our memory and remind us of the songs or films of the artist in question, an interaction of data.
This refreshingly inspirational collection, the artist has named, ‘Ghost in the Machine’.
