Opening "Kathleen McDermott: Not a Gadget"

KODA in New York proudly presents the solo exhibition of Kathleen McDermott. Not a Gadget probes the artist’s conflicted relationship between the body and technology, spiritualism and cynicism, and her desire for both community and isolation. Through her decades-long practice of hacking and recrafting consumer electronics, McDermott develops systems that seemingly have agency, resisting control and participating as actors in spontaneous performances for the camera. A lapsed Catholic, McDermott explores the absurdity of manifestation, without ever truly disavowing the practice. Drawing from cybernetic theory, philosophy, and the malleable logic of the Looney Tunes, she veils her intentions through humor, but her efforts at hand-crafting machines bely an uncomfortable sincerity. A theme of anti-productivity runs throughout, a quiet protest to a quantification-obsessed work culture enabled by modern technologies as the artist shifts between observer/skeptic and active user of the tools.

“The deep meaning of personhood is being reduced by illusions of…