At TQS 2017 we have borrowed the definition of displacement as “the action of moving something from its place or position,” while search engines remind us of it’s many overlapping meanings.  

In scientific terms displacement is the measuring of volume through submerging an object in a fluid.  In human terms our time continues to see the movement of displaced persons. Search engines further remind us that within Freudian psychology displacement is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable. In all its definitions there are questions of scales and pressures along side an implied feeling of a vanished the initial state.

Displacement, we find both within search results and in our research, is something different to the scientist, the refugee, the psychologist and the artist.  The artist’s unique role is to operate between the strictures of language, in gaps not covered by its various uses and definitions.  

Because displacement has many overlapping definitions used by specialized communities it is my favorite sort of word on which to conduct Internet Imperialism, my practice intentionally structuring of information to dominate the online definition or reputation of a place or idea. While making Search Engine Art I manipulate search results, displacing existing image results for my paintings.

My painting-visual response to “displacement” is interrelational.  It takes the straightforwardness of the scientific method alongside the emotional feelings of disruption, loss implied by it’s other uses.  

Like an object submerged in water, we are measured by movement, by change, by the difference between what was there when we started,  what we felt like we had, where we belonged and where we find ourselves now.  

Each of these Displacement Paintings will start a conversation with search engines that push them to the top image results for “displacement.”  Each of these paintings will be portals that link back to all the work created during TQS 2017.   The internet definition of “displacement” will thus be enriched by the complexity of TQS’s artist responses of all mediums.  

This site is part of an Search Engine Art piece as part of TQS2017, conducted by Gretchen Andrew. Sites in connected projects include: Displacement, Hackney Wick, Naked Woman, & Malignant Epithelial Ovarian Cancer