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“CODE and NOISE”

curated by Christine Duval

 

 JD Beltran & Scott Minneman, Jim Campbell, Daniel Canogar, Mel Day & Frank Ham,

Laurie Frick, James Lanahan, LigoranoReese, Clive McCarthy, Simon Pyle,

Casey Reas, Laura Splan, and Yang Yongliang.

 

CURRENTS, New Media Festival

Santa Fe, June 10-26, 2016

“CODE and NOISE” is a multi-media exhibition that offers a fresh look at the ways in which contemporary artists create or leverage software in the production of their work. In the exhibition, viewers encounter works in mediums that span much of art history: from woodcut, textile, photograph, and painting to super 8, video, and generative art. The exhibition addresses not simply the variety of mediums, but also highlights the varied approaches these artists take in yoking the language of computers to their art.

 

The advent of the computer is arguably one of the most culturally significant developments of the last century. In the early sixties, at a time when mainframe computers could only be found in large industrial or university laboratories, scientists and mathematicians like Manfred Mohr went on to adopt the role of artist and computer art was born. But computer-generated art was graphical in nature and tended to be solely structured around a techno-centric narrative. By the mid eighties, the appearance of off-the-shelf software and the widespread adoption of personal computers changed our relationship with technology forever. Today, software continues its inexorable spread into our daily lives with the “internet of things”—into our homes, appliances and cars. In the same manner, software has infiltrated many artistic practices—sometimes as a tool, but more often than not as an ever-evolving medium in itself.

 

Whether the artists in “Code and Noise” wrote their own code or leveraged existing ones, they all are preoccupied how the technology can mimic, transform, or alter the perception of the world we live in.  The featured artists gather and study information from a wide range of sources—the TV, newspapers, photographs, Fitbit, the internet, or scientific research documentation—and then seek to actively engage the viewer in the meaning of the work.

 

 

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