Guthrie Lonergan’s sincere, digital artworks can be described in many ways, but the one thing that ties them together is their relationship to the Internet, and Lonergan’s uniquely qualified ability to harvest or bend it to do his bidding. His recent works in the Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum included his installing a talking yellow M&M on the exhibition’s homepage. A survey of his works is up at Honor Fraser in L.A. through December 17.
What was your first gallery experience?
Ten years ago, I was putting a lot of DVDs in FedEx boxes and sending them off to places. It’s funny, because it’s now all on the Internet, and you send files, but back then I’d make a looping DVD, because the galleries wouldn’t know what to do with a QuickTime file.
Do you have any unrealized projects?
My favorite karaoke place in L.A., Max Karaoke, has a website where you can search the song database, so I made a script that downloaded the entire database, including the little numbers that you punch in to choose a song. So I could print that out into a book or something.
How did you fund your first works?
Everything was on a laptop I already had, and nothing really cost too much money.
When you aren’t in the studio, where are you?
My studio is my bedroom. I don’t get out very much. I like the beach a lot. Max Karaoke is a great place to be. My song, for a while, was Fiona Apple’s ‘Criminal.'
In your practice, what comes naturally to you and what do you have to force?
I like researching. I like looking at stuff and absorbing culture. What’s the difficult part? Interviews and photo shoots.
