Set the controls for a barren landscape rich in subconscious meaning is an exhibition of white-line woodcuts. This technique was created in the early 20th century by Massachusetts-based artists who were inspired by the colors and fades of Japanese woodcut, but who were limited by their lack of access to knowledge and proper tools. Searching for a more efficient printing method, they used white-line carving to demarcate each distinct hue instead of separating their colors onto blocks for each layer. While this process was essentially a bastardization of the more precise and refined Japanese method, it also symbolizes an important ritual that artists, and especially printmakers, have taken part in many times throughout history: utilizing their ingenuity to adapt technology for their own needs. The white-line prints in this show distill complicated images into direct and gestural shapes. The carving is both an outline that defines the image, and a boundary that fractures and obscures. The imagery draws from the tradition of science fiction as a willful suspension of disbelief combined with the freedom to speculate and invent. While in one regard science fiction may appear as merely escapist imaginings of space travel and other-worldly interactions, these works consider how we treat each other and how technology shapes our relationships. 

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