The early works were, as people referred to them, appropriations and deconstructions—attempts to grab at relatively inaccessible imagery in order to “talk back to the media.” I feel that the time we are in now is almost the opposite. We’re surrounded everywhere by imagery that pours and flows out at us and through us and seems easy to access. But there is also that shadow, that question of how truly accessible this imagery is. And what does this monumental flow of imagery mean? What does it mean to be constantly relating through social media? What types of surveillance are really out there? These are the large questions of today. We’re in a period where we’re constantly taking part in an extreme flow and yet not truly aware of our real position in that flow.
— Dara Birnbaum, In The Studio, by Lauren Cornell, Art in America, 2016.