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“Common Measures,” a show featuring three installations by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer , opens at Pace Gallery in New York. Included are interactive crowd favourites Cloud on Water (2016) and Pulse Topology (2021), and a new generative work. The latter, Hormonium (2022, image), presents dynamic CGI waves crashing in synchronization with how the rhythm of human hormone release varies over the course of a day (i.e. cortisol in morning and prolactin at night).
DOSSIER :
“I’m interested in the tension between pure randomness and something controlling it. Vera found that tension. Her work just looks like it’s from another planet.”
– David Familian, Beall Center Artistic Director and Curator, discussing how the venue’s Vera Molnar retrospective, “Variations,” is rooted in his deep fascination with the early innovator
Delving into their (eponymous) new film (image, 2022), “Capture,” a solo exhibition by Metahaven , opens in Trondheim, Norway. In it, the artist collective explores ‘knowability’ on three fronts: a rumination on the inscrutability of bats, CERN’s hunt for the Higgs boson , and the remarkable qualities of lichens . Their displayed media, and accompanying textiles and collages contemplate consciousness in “both speculative deeply implicated ways,” writes curator Stefanie Hessler .
“As its possibilities expand, it’s important to consider the potential threats and dangers as the metaverse introduces risks related to legislation, property, control, fraud, privacy threats, ethics, and security.”
“On Breathing,” an exhibition by Nina Barnett & Jeremy Bolen that examines respiration relative to “pressure, particulate, filtration, and flow,” opens at Johannesburg’s Adler Museum of Medicine . Its lone installation, On Breathing—Iron Lung With Blue Gums (2022, image), puts a hulking iron lung in conversation with Blue Gum Trees , mine dust, extraction residue, and radioactive bricks, contrasting the deep time of resource extraction with local atmospheric conditions.
“Our ambition must stretch beyond the timid idea of AI governance, which accepts a priori what we’re already being subjected to, and instead look to create a transformative technical practice that supports the common good.”
–
Resisting AI (2022) author Dan McQuillan, advocating for active resistance against a dawning age of “machine learning
redlining ”
“This Unfathomable Weight,” a lightbox and billboard project parsing the trauma of “the massive crises of recent years,” opens at University of Toronto Mississauga campus. Curated by Farah Yusef for The Blackwood , the show invites Jessica Thalmann , Christina Battle , and Erika DeFreitas to sequentially contribute works; Thalmann’s opener, cut between the supports and collapse (2022, image), documents the emotional weight of time spent in the ICU (as a primary caregiver) during the pandemic.
“Ditch the pronouns and hit the gym, then you’ll realize the importance of Proof of Work.”
– Proverbial
ToxicBitcoiner , coming after
Kyle McDonald following his
Coindesk interview . Speaking on Ethereum’s impending transition to the dramatically less energy-intensive
proof-of-stake protocol, McDonald argued that “proof-of-work was never necessary,” and that “Bitcoin will never hit $69k again.” Bitcoin maxis were irritated, and have been harassing the American software artist since.
Presenting a new series of dramatic computational landscapes, Quayola ’s solo exhibition “Forces / Vectors / Chromia” opens at Marignana Arte in Venice. Storms draws on a series of “ultra-high definition videos of stormy seas shot on the coasts of Cornwall” that the Italian artist used like a dataset. “The video is not the matrix of the painting,” writes curator Valentino Catricalà , “instead it is the data inferred by it: vectors and chromia, forces and intensity.”
“Something like the nail art design might include the positions of the hands, the angle of the pseudo-photographic shot, and instructions for tweaking the prompt to produce different manicure styles and themes.”
– “AI whisperer” Justin Reckling, giving
DALL-E and
Midjourney prompt tips. Chatting with
Adi Robertson , Reckling describes his experience selling prompts on the
PromptBase marketplace, and gives vocabulary advice for would-be AI image wranglers.
“Cloud Walkers,” an exhibition speaking to “climate, imagination, and hyperlinks alike,” opens in Seoul. Pairing Asian video and installation artists with architects, its contributors include Lawrence Lek , A.A. Murakami , Tromarama , and Samson Young . Curated by June Young Kwak, the show cultivates dialogues across mediums and epochs, as exemplified by the placing of LuYang’s hyper-digital DOKU Hello World (2021) in Đoàn Thanh Hà’s (traditional) Floating Bamboo House (image).
“Seppuku with a chef’s knife. Crippling, fatal allergies. Diarrhea so explosive she rockets into the sky like a rag doll, then dies from the fall. Then, somehow, she gets up and keeps walking.”
– Writer
Travis Diehl , recounting the gruesome deaths
Martine Syms ’s digital avatar is subjected to in the video piece
DED (2021). “I think it’s kind of funny, but I understand how people do not,” the American media artist acknowledges. “I’m using a signifier, Blackness, which for some people can connote serious pain. But I see it as a real space of joy and freedom.”
Imagining a future on a rapidly changing planet, “The New Earth” opens at Public Works, Chicago. Ten artists including Jeremy Bolen , Susan Goethel Campbell , Sam Rolfes , and Kat Jarvinen provide “a testing ground for addressing the preeminent issues of our time,” from AI to climate change. Jarvinen’s Feral Devices (2021, image), for example, disrupt waste cycles and assumptions about technological decay in search for “alternative realities for those things we throw away.”
“Of the 13 projects examined for the study—accounting for about 55% of the world’s current operational capacity—seven underperformed, two failed, and one was mothballed.”
–
Guardian reporter
Damien Gayle , on the abysmal track record of current
carbon capture and storage (CCS) solutions revealed in a major
IEEFA analysis . “Many international bodies and national government are relying on CCS to get to net zero, and it simply won’t work,” IEEFA researcher Bruce Robertson says.
Featuring contributors including Ant Farm , Joan Jonas , and Jacques Cousteau , “Who Speaks for the Oceans?” opens in New York. Looking to challenge the legacy of “colonial, racialized, gendered, and terra-centric” ocean histories, the collected works foreground nonhuman perspectives and ecological responsibility. In Ursula Biemann’s video installation Acoustic Ocean (2018, image), for example, the artist-researcher documents her efforts to record the sonic ecology of marine life.
From 15th Century painting to NFTs: “Meta.Space: Spatial Visions” opens at Francisco Carolinum in Linz, Austria, gathering over 30 artists that examine “social, real, and imaginary space.” Next to the virtual worlds of late luminary Herbert W. Franke , for example, towers the site-specific ‘crypto sculpture’ by Alexander Grasser and Alexandra Parger. Open Architectures (image) is a wooden model of one of 50 community structures built collaboratively via interactive NFT .
Leaning into notions of immateriality and the technological sublime, “Digital Art Waves” opens in Paris. Featuring artists including Kika Nicolela , Manfred Mohr , Quayola , and Nicolas Sassoon , whose contributions range from prints on paper and metal to video and NFTs. Sabrina Ratté, for example, reconstitutes her reflection-heavy 2016 CGI video piece Wintergarden , which “straddles the line between abstract architecture and an enclosed garden,” as an NFT (image).
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