prosthetic knowledge

manwitha.mov

My submission for the ‘Run Computer Run’ AR show exhibition ‘Economics + The Immaterial’: avant-guard film classic ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ meets 8-Bit aesthetics of computers which had an impact in Russia.

Apologies for gratuitous self-promotion - video and synopsis below:

manwitha.mov from Rich Oglesby on Vimeo.

Created for the ‘Economics + The Immaterial’ exhibition, part of the ‘Run Computer Run’ show at the Rua Red Gallery from May 25 to 13 July.
runcomputerrun.com/?page_id=8313

A visual experiment of curiosity and theoretical connections, of culture and technology (in particular, Russia), information transference and reproduction through media, analogue and digital.

The project aims to be a combination of two Russian cultural artifacts, a visualization of the results. First, “Man With A Movie Camera”, an avant-guard film directed by Dziga Vertov, demonstrated the creative use of filming, employing techniques developed and practiced for years by the director. In the context of this piece, the original film could be considered a “demoscene production”, exploring and pushing the creative possibilities of a technology. Second, the growth of ZX Spectrum clones in Russia during the 1980′s, in which colour and cheap digital computing grew from reverse-engineering and redevelopment. The availability of these various computer clones evolved a homebrew creative scene around the former Soviet bloc. There is still a strong creative demoscene around these machines in Russia today.

The whole of the ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ film has been converted into a representational format within the ZX Spectrum graphics protocol, reduced to 256 by 192 pixels, with each 8 by 8 pixel area represented by just two colours available from the system. The original file was downloaded from the internet (in .mov format) – it is worth bearing in mind that this file of information itself has travelled to and from various technological formats itself: without even taking into consideration the editing and filming or the original film, the information has been transferred to video tape, then a digital video file, and then on a video hosting site, each stage which has it’s own technical protocols which would effect the fidelity of visual representation.
The film has been converted to ZX Spectrum visual protocol manually on a shot by shot basis to produce the best representation of the film as much as possible.

Manfred Mohr: one and zero 

Exhibition currently at the Carroll Fletcher Gallery, London, on Computer Art pioneer Manfred Mohr, which runs until the 20th of December:

All my relations to aesthetical decisions always go back to musical thinking, either active in that I played a musical instrument or theoretical in that I see my art as visual music… I was very impressed by Anton Webern’s music from the 1920s where for the first time I realized that space, the pause, became as important to the musical construct as the sound itself. So there are these two poles, one and zero.

Manfred Mohr

one and zero, Manfred Mohr’s first solo exhibition in London, presents a concise survey of his fifty-year practice. Harnessing the automatic processes of the computer, Mohr’s work brings together his deep interest in music and mathematics to create works that are rigorously minimal but with an elegant lyricism that belie their formal underpinnings. Through drawing, painting, wall-reliefs and screen-based works, the show examines the artist’s practice through the prism of music and the idea that what is left out is as important as what remains.

Beginning in 1969, Mohr was one of the first visual artists to explore the use of algorithms and computer programs to make independent abstract artworks.  His early computer plotter drawings - when he had access to one of the earliest computer driven plotter drawing machines at the Meteorology Institute in Paris - are delicate, spare monochrome works on paper derived from algorithms devised by the artist and executed by the computer.  P198aa (1977-79) is an elegant rhythmic composition of nine randomly rotated and cut cubes that hints at multi-dimensional space.

More about the show can be found at the gallery’s website here

Images above were taken from a Flickr set put together by Paul Prudence, which can be found here

One of the artist’s featured in my Algorists piece for Rhizome, which can be found here

SOFTWARE - An Exhibition (1970) 

Fascinating art catalogue of an exhibition which explores the creative potential of communication technologies, with ideas and approaches which are relevant today.

Some hightlights:

The first three images above refer to a project called ‘Seek’ by M.I.T. featuring an enclosed space filled with toy blocks that are placed by a robotic hand. Also inside are some gerbals who navigate themselves around the changing environment they find themselves in.

“Notes on art and information processing” essay by Jack Burnham is worth a read, with some great highlighted quotes.

“The Crafting of Media” brief essay by Theodor H. Nelson also has some interesting points, inventing the term ‘cybercrud’ to refer to information shared to one another via computer, and the first time (I have heard) the term ‘hypergram’ used a visual relation to hypertext, which could be best understood in the way a photo in Facebook or Flick is tagged with additional information which is referenceable within it.

Tactile Film by Linda Berris.

There are many others (various sound art projects, one which employs solar panels), even conceptual billboard work.

You can get a link to a pdf download via Monoskop Log here (discovered via brown-and-son)

Day in London 

Took a day off to see the great city (so no research today).

Met Joanne McNeil (the editor for Rhizome, who is giving a couple of talks in the UK) for lunch - very pleasant person to meet (and the first person I have met in offline world from being in contact through the online world …)

Then off to the Tate Modern to see the Damien Hirst show before it closes. It was OK - I was very familiar with the works. The only truly standout moment, though, was seeing for yourself how his famous shark has really aged and wrinkled - certainly not the shark I saw well over a decade ago, yet somehow fitting.

Then later, I visited the Saatchi Gallery to see the Korean Eye. I have an interest in contemporary Korean art but wasn’t expecting too much - in fact, there was a lot more to enjoy. Would certainly recommend - above are a few photos taken with my mobile phone.

From that exhibition, the GIFs above are paintings by Joonsung Bae, whose works are generally set in the gallery space, and have lenticular prints which alter elements within the composition.

Lee Bul: From Me, Belongs To You 

Large-scale solo exhibition which was on at Japan’s Mori Art Museum of one of Asia’s leading female artists. Her works are sculptural, with both natural and technological forms - looks interesting:

Since the 1990s, Lee Bul has built an international career as one of the leading contemporary artists from Asia. Her oeuvre is dominated by sculptures that demonstrate a mastery of materials and techniques, including her celebrated Cyborgs and Anagrams series, hybrid machine-and-organic forms referencing critical theory as well as dystopian cinematic worlds; karaoke “pods” that evoke space capsules for eternal sleep; and glittering, spectral gures and cityscapes that seem to be falling into ruin. For over twenty years, it could be said that Lee, whose practice has spanned her home country’s transition from military dictatorship to democracy, has been on a quest for an elusive something . the ultimate physical form perhaps, or the ideal society. While showcasing her major works in the four sections “Ephemeral Presence,” “Beyond Human,” “Utopia and Dreamscape” and “From Me, Belongs to You Only,” in the “Studio” section this exhibition will present the drawings and models that also form the font of her ideas. The subtitle “From Me, Belongs to You Only” is also a message from Lee: her attempt to find the “something” for which she is constantly searching in a personal relationship with each individual viewer. Come and experience that message for yourself in the spaces at “Lee Bul: From Me, Belongs to You Only.”

More Here

International Teletext Art Festival - Germany 

ITAF is now going to be shown in the biggest Teletext country in Europe! There will be an exhibition at Pflueger68 starting on the 16th August - the poster (top image) uses one of Max Capacity’s entries, and to my amazement, they used on of mine for the flyers … featuring Max!

More info can be found here

Sunlight Graffiti 

Part of the Little Sun project by Olafur Eliasson currently running at the Tate Modern, where participators can create their own light graffiti and locate it online via an interactive sphere:

The Sunlight Graffiti sphere is by artist Olafur Eliasson, conceived as part of his larger Little Sun project. Little Sun, a work of art that works in life, is a solar-powered lamp that Eliasson has developed with the engineer Frederik Ottesen. The lantern is one element of the artwork, but the way it connects us and what it tells us about energy and energy access is all part of the art.

Currently, an interactive Sunlight Graffiti installation is set up at Tate Modern, London, on level 2 as part of the museum’s Poetry and Dream exhibition (28 July – 23 September 2012). Visitors are invited to do a work of art here by dancing, jumping, and writing out loud with a Little Sun in their hand. Their Sunlight Graffiti are captured and uploaded to this site and shown as part of the sphere.

Also presented at Tate Modern is Eliasson’s new artwork Your light movement, 2012, a video about physical movement, light, and life. Watch it here.

‘For this project at Tate Modern – the former power station turned into a museum – I have thought a lot about light as something that is more than just a means to illuminate something else. Light generates action. The Sunlight Graffiti project has been developed to foster human creativity and movement, driven by the power of light.

Little Sun responds to the situation we face today, where natural resources no longer abound. Energy shortage and unequal energy distribution make it necessary to reconsider how our life-sustaining systems function. I see Little Sun as the wedge to open up this urgent discussion from the perspective of art, to raise awareness about the need to improve energy access and the distribution of energy today.’

–Olafur Eliasson

You can look around the interactive light graffiti globe online here

Francoise Gamma - American Fantasy Classics 

Well-known contemporary net / gif artist has real-world solo exhibit, including laser-sculpted 3D physical stills:

American Fantasy Classics is pleased to present the work of Barcelona-based artist Francoise Gamma. Drawing aesthetically from the early days of web-based graphics, Gamma’s low res hallucinations feature a uniquely hypnotic pulse of violence and eroticism.

Harnessing the power of rare crystals and secret lasers, the mesmerizing animations have been exhumed from the wilds of cyberspace for his first solo exhibition.

More Here

The Wall: BORN IN 1987: The Animated Gif 

The Photographers Gallery, London, is hosting an exhibit celebrating and examining the animated GIF format:

Part of our extended programme includes a new digital display named The Wall,an exhibition space for screen media. The Wall consists of a 2.7 x 3m Sharp video wall, situated on the ground floor and visible to everyone visiting the building and those passing by on the street.

The Wall forms part of a research programme which aims to explore issues concerning the digital image, its dissemination and display on-screen. The Wall’s programme will include experimental commissions, collaborations and participation.

For the opening show, The Wall will address a unique form of image which is best experienced via a screen: the animated gif. The GIF is an image file format created in 1987 by CompuServe as a portable, low bandwidth image file easily rendered by a web browser. Restricted to only 256 colours, and able to store multiple frames in a single image, the GIF brought animated movement to the static webpages of the 1990s in an era before YouTube and Flash.

The show runs from 19 May to 1 July 2012.

You can find out more about the show here, as well as visiting the show’s official Tumblr blog here

1 and Another 

Real-world physical pixel art space designed for creative expression and interaction - part of the Life Online exhibition at the National Media Museum, Bradford UK, which looks at the impact of the internet in our lives. 

1 and anotheris an artwork by Erin Newell and Phil Bird for the Life Online exhibition [open source] at the National Media Museum, Bradford< UK.

It is an interactive, ever-changing dialogue of imagery. An online user visits this website and creates a picture, by selecting colours and creating a grid-based mosaic with pixels. The pixels correlate to physical blocks in the galley of the National Media Museum to be placed in a 3meter wooden grid. The museum visitor receives a grid reference, selects a block and places it in to a grid. As the image is created in the museum based on its virtual blue-print a web-cam captures the creation and is uploaded back on to this website. 

You can create your own pixel art drawing on the website (here) which will be broadcast in the exhibition space. Personally, I have only seen that happen once - people are usually happy to leave their own little mark, or very young children tend to take a load of the blocks off the wall to stack them on the floor. 

I did manage to capture the above footage, which demonstrates the potential fun of the exhibit - it’s all broadcast through a webcam during opening times. 

You can find out more information about this piece at the 1 and Another site here, and more about the Life Online show here.

Instructors by Sylvain Sailly 

Online GIF Art site bubblebyte.org presents a collection of animations which looks at the aesthetics of interface interactions, here with Google Sketchup:

Instructors, the artist’s first solo show at bubblebyte.org, follows the research on imperceptible variations and takes the form of an on-line series of semi-autonomous 3D animations created exclusively for bubblebyte.org. The series adds to the artist’s personal web diagrams collection and functions as an extension of his site-specific and gallery work. 

More info and examples here

ARTanatocus

South Korean Art exhibition looking and reinterpreting ideas, concepts and artworks related to anatomy and art.

More information (in Korean) here [Google Translation]

Patrick Martinez - “REEL TAWLK” exhibition at Loft in Space

This looks good. Photos by: Brandon Shigeta

South Korea 1970s [Part 1] - Korea 1970 Exhibition

Two posts related to South Korea culture from the 1970s - first, a new exhibition in Seoul has photographs and installations recreating shops of the time.

There is no English version of the site, but more about it can be found here