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Showing posts with label Digital Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Digital Art. Show all posts
26.2.15
6.7.14
Tony D. Sampson: Barbican’s digital exhibition is nothing more than gimmickry @ The Conversation
Art exhibitions that celebrate revolutions are hardly few and far between. After all, a revolution is a very sexy thing, and a surefire way to sell tickets. But those planning to visit the Barbican’s Digital Revolution exhibition will perhaps question the legitimacy of events that celebrate art revolutions of any kind – let alone the highly contested idea of a “digital” revolution.
Without doubt, a massive technological shift has hit the arts, and this has prompted novel approaches since the advent of analogue computers in the 1950s. But such transformations to the media in which art is produced do not necessarily equate to a revolution in art itself. Something more than a change in technology is needed to spark a revolution. Although art has clearly been influenced by computing, the direction of art itself has never been digital.
Before we accept the rhetoric of revolution, the relation between the digital and the art world needs to be examined. Ewan Morrison and Matthew Fuller’s article on the topic, published in 2004, is a good starting point. In it, they demonstrate how the art world’s ambivalence towards the digital continues to make its actual influence difficult to discern.
Dystopian or mundane?
They put forward two opposing ideas about what exactly constitutes digital art. Morrison’s dystopian vision contends that digital art removes the sense of objective distance that he sees as integral to our experience of art. This is certainly somewhat revolutionary. We look at an artwork, we move around it, we study it from different angles and distances.
But within the virtual world, this is all utterly removed. And perhaps there is a dangerous process at work here, in which the virtual eats up the real.
Morrison contends that interactive art similarly consumes the distance between the artwork and the viewer. And so interactive and digital art alike produce a virtual vacuum resembling Baudrillard’s horror of a collapsing culture. Fans of the Matrix, at least, will grasp this reference.
In contrast, and more interestingly, Fuller sees the digital as inherently unrevolutionary, more a kind of virtual refrain which occasionally passes through mainstream culture. Digital art, in this sense, need not be digital at all. Consider Jeff Koons’s work with a series of baseballs, which he describes as a form of artificial intelligence, or Ricardo Basbaum’s work with audience participation. These artists show just how far the terminology and methodologies of digital culture have permeated mainstream art.
It’s difficult to fathom exactly what interpretation of digital art the Barbican’s exhibition projects. Entering into Conway’s Game of Life (cellular automata nicely projected onto the floor as well as the screen), through geeky obsessions with old gadgets and games, and beyond into the wow factor of CGI spaceships, Kinect hacks and Lady Gaga’s latest range of wearable technology, one just seems to get lost in a history of apolitical fairground attractions.
Gimmicks are not art
What the Barbican exhibition offers is neither Morrison’s revolutionary death of objective distance nor Fuller’s quiet insistence of the digital refrain. Instead, it shows how this particular exhibit is unable to express itself in any way other than through the gimmickry of superficial immersion.
The wearable technology on display on the way out of the exhibit could have interestingly reflected on Conway’s cellular automata; instead, it ended up resembling little more than a series of factory presets one might find on a B&Q Christmas tree.
So don’t be fooled: this is no revolution. The ideas contained draw deserved attention to the potential role a dissident art might play in confronting communication and power in a post-Snowden era – but that particular piece of digital history itself was sadly missing.
Art’s chaotic trajectory needs to open up to the ever-expanding software infrastructure of control. Digital art should not blandly celebrate technology for technology’s sake – gimmicks are not art. Instead, it must critique the operations of power within the software systems we take for granted.
Read more
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10.6.14
Internet machine by Timo Arnall, or why the cloud isn't in the air
Internet machine is a multi-screen film made by Timo Arnall about the invisible infrastructures of the internet. The film reveals the hidden materiality of data by exploring some of the machines through which ‘the Cloud’ is transmitted.
Read more.
Read more.
12.5.14
Black Rain by semiconductor
Black Rain is sourced from images collected by the twin satellite, solar mission, STEREO. Here we see the HI (Heliospheric Imager) visual data as it tracks interplanetary space for solar wind and CME’s (coronal mass ejections) heading towards Earth. More info on semiconductor.
2.3.14
Space Replay
A collaboration between Julinka Ebhardt, Will Yates-Johnson and Francesco Tacchini from the Royal College of Art.
"Space Replay is a hovering object that explores and manipulates transitional public spaces with particular acoustic properties. By constantly recording and replaying these ambient sounds, the levitating sphere produces a delayed echo of human activity..."Read more.
7.2.14
Follow the white dot by Francesco Tacchini
29.1.14
12.1.14
Kinect-tracked digital 3D paint
Work-in-progress experiment with a Kinect live tracking my hands so to paint digitally
19.11.13
21.9.13
SYN-Phon by Candas Sisman, Barabás Lőrinc and Ölveti Mátyás
I stumbled upon this nice AV composition from Candas Sisman, which was exhibited at Budapest Art Factory as well as performed live. Read more.
Barabás Lőrinc: Trumpet
Ölveti Mátyás: Cello
Candas Sisman: Electronics + Objects
12.5.13
Digital Dark Age : RÉPLIQUES ART-SCIENCE @ IRCAM, Paris, Juin 2013
Le « Digital Dark Age » désigne une situation future où les données électroniques seront illisibles car stockées sur des supports caducs dans des formats oubliés.
Cette problématique touche tous les domaines du savoir et de l’art, de l’archivage et de la création. Elle s’étend à mesure que la mémoire de l’humanité est convertie en bits. Quelles stratégies face à « l’oubli numérique » ? Quelle pérennité pour les œuvres conçues avec une technologie bientôt révolue ? Montage et archivage, vintage et remake, interprétation et réinterprétation authentique signalent l’inventivité artistique en prise directe avec la fuite du temps technologique. Rencontres, débats et « répliques » art-science sur l’œuvre au temps du numérique : une confrontation entre Faust et Janus.
Avec Patrick Bazin, Pierre Boulez, Nicolas Bourriaud, Jean-Baptiste Clais, Régis Debray, Philippe Dubois, Christine Berthaud, Thierry Bouche, Roberto Di Cosmo, Andrew Gerzso, Emmanuel Hoog, Christian Jacob, Anne Laforet, Pierre Lemarquis, Michaël Levinas, Amedeo Napoli, Frédérick Raynal, Slava G. Turyshev…
Coordination Sylvain Lumbroso, Hugues Vinet, Sylvie Benoit
- Répliques Art-Science 1 12 juin
- Répliques Art-Science 2 13 juin
- Répliques Art-Science 3 14 juin
RÉPLIQUES ART-SCIENCE 1
RÉPLIQUES ARTCIENCE 3
Postérité, devenir, oubli : l'œuvre du numérique
Le « Digital Dark Age » désigne une situation future où les données électroniques seront illisibles car stockées sur des supports caducs dans des formats oubliés. Plus d’infos>
Rencontres du 12 juin
14h30-16h, Ircam, salle Igor-Stravinsky
Andrew Gerzso (Ircam) | Anne Laforet
16h30-18h, Ircam, salle Igor-Stravinsky
Frédérick Raynal | Jean-Baptiste Clais | Philippe Dubois
Débat
20h, Ircam, salle Igor-Stravinsky
Nicolas Bourriaud | Christophe Bruno | Jean-Baptiste Clais | Radu Mihaileanu
RÉPLIQUES ART-SCIENCE 2
Conférences du 13 juin
14h30-16h, Ircam, salle Igor-Stravinsky
Roberto Di Cosmo | Amadeo Napoli
16h30-18h, Ircam, salle Igor-Stravinsky
Christine Berthaud | Thierry Bouche
Keynote
18h30, Ircam, salle Igor-Stravinsky
Slava G. Turyshev
Débat
20h, Ircam, Espace de projection
Pierre Boulez | Régis Debray | Pierre Lemarquis
Postérité, devenir, oubli : l'œuvre du numérique
Débats et conférences du 14 juin
Débats et « répliques » art-science sur l’œuvre au temps du numérique : une confrontation entre Faust et Janus. Quelle pérennité pour les œuvres conçues avec une technologie bientôt révolue ? Une question cruciale touchant toutes les disciplines artistiques et le partage de la connaissance. Plus d’infos>
Débat
14h30, Sacem
Patrick Bazin | Bruno Racine
Keynote
15h30, Sacem
Christophe Dessimoz
Conférences
16h30, Sacem
Alain Bonardi | Delphine Dauga
Débat: 18h30, Sacem
Emmanuel Hoog | Christian Jacob | Michaël Levinas | Laurent Petitgirard
27.4.13
Immaterials: Light painting WiFi
A project from Timo Arnall which explores the uneven terrains of WiFi networks
in cityscape. It was realised by light-painting the networks' signal strength
in long-exposure photographs with a custom built tool. Read more:
nearfield.org/2011/02/wifi-light-painting
21.7.12
Desire of Codes | Seiko Mikami
Desire of Codes is a commissioned work by YCAM//Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (JP) and has been exhibited at ICC Tokyo, Dortmund Center for Art and Creativity, and Künstlerhaus Wien.
Kazunao Abe (Curator, YCAM/Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media / JP); Satoshi Hama, Soichiro Mihara, Richi Owaki ( YCAM InterLab / JP), Norimichi Hirakawa (JP), Ryota Kuwakubo (JP), TAKEGAHARASEKKEI, Tama Art University, Course of Media Art (JP)