 |
|
The Convergence of Text, Image, and Aesthetics
after Computers and the Internet
"
Evidently, code works like poetry in that it plays with structures of language itself, as well as our corresponding perceptions.
"
Geoff Cox, Alex McLean, and Adrian Ward in
The Aesthetics of Generative Code
|
|
Saturday, February 27,
3pm
Cirrus Gallery,
2011 S Santa Fe Ave
Los Angeles
,
CA
90021
Art.Exe
is a series of presentations that will focus on developments in the aesthetic realm due in part to the novel understanding of the convergence of text and image after computers and the Internet. Presenters include Gaby Cepeda, Sterling Crispin, Eddo Stern, and Charlie White.
By its very design, the computer is an interface for text and image. Since the 1980s, with the advent of personal computers, they have been a combination of keyboard and screen. This call and response between the textual and visual coupled with the rise of ubiquitous computing has allowed for the development of alternative language modes. But the connection between the computer and language extends much deeper. Language lies at the core of how computers and subsequently the Internet function. HyperText Markup Language, Java, and Python are just some of the languages that form the software, websites, and applications that populate the net and the devices we interact with on a daily basis. The entirety of the Internet is itself a domain of language. Every part of the web is interpreted and archived through text-based processes. The virtual sphere is a hologram knitted from the fabric of language.
We have come to understand and experience computer languages through interactions mediated by visual interfaces. For example, when we open a .jpg file on a computer we expect to see an image, not the code that produces that image. Yet, one cannot exist without the other. The computer translating the code is what allows us to perceive visual information instead of some undecipherable computer jargon. In this context, text and image exist as one.
As computers and the Internet increasingly inform art and visual culture, our understanding of text and image begins to mirror the logic facilitated by these technologies. This is a moment where information can vacillate between text and image. Text can be activated; it can be performed visually as a script or command. Images can be generated from autonomous code and can operate linguistically.
Art.Exe is organized by Heber Rodriguez.
Gaby Cepeda
is an independent curator, art writer and artist, born in
Veracruz
in 1985, currently based in
Mexico City
. Her work focuses on the confluence of feminist theory and the Internet in contemporary art,
with research
specifically
located
in the
Americas
.
She obtained her
BA in Photography from the Universidad Aut
ó
noma de Nuevo Le
ó
n (MX), is working on her thesis for MA on Curating of Visual Arts at Uneversidad Nacional 3 de Febrero (AR), and was a participant of the Artists & Curators' Program at Universidad Torcuato DiTella (Buenos Aires, 2013). She has curated and participated in exhibitions at Bikini Wax, Mexico City; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; Sala Luis Mir
ó
Quesada Garland, Lima; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Church of Templehead, Chicago; and White Box Art Center, New York.
Sterling Crispin
is an artist and technologist born in 1985 in Maui, Hawaii. His work explores the relationships between the exponentially growing technological-other as it relates to our human bodies, minds, and psyches. He received his Master of Fine Arts and Master of Science in Multimedia Engineering from the
University
of
California Santa Barbara
. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and has been published in Frieze, Wired, BOMB, Rhizome, Creators Project, Fast Company, Y-Combinator's Hacker News, and the Post Internet Survival Guide. He was an invited speaker at the first annual Drones and Aerial Robotics Conference in NYC as coauthor of OpenDroneControl, an open source software platform for developing interactive artworks and research projects with aerial robotics. Lectures include Stanford, NYU
ITP
, LACMA Art + Technology Lab, SFAQ, YouTube LA, and
UCLA
Art
Sci
Center
.
Eddo Stern
is an artist, game designer, and professor at UCLA
'
s Design | Media Arts Department. His work explores the uneasy and otherwise unconscious connections between physical existence and electronic simulation, surrounding the subject matters of violence, memory and identification. He works with various media including computer software & hardware, game design, live performance, digital video, and kinetic sculpture. His work has been widely exhibited at international venues including The Tate Gallery Liverpool, The Sundance Film Festival, The Haifa Museum of Art, Museo Reina Sofia, Electronic Entertainment Expo(E3), MuHKA, The Walker Art Center, The Game Developers Conference, Kunsthalle D
ü
sseldorf, The Institute of Contemporary Art, The New Museum for Contemporary Art, IndieCade, The Rotterdam Film Festival, The Kitchen, The Hammer Museum, Light Industry, ICC Tokyo, The Australian Center of the Moving Image, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Machine Project, Forum des Images, Image Forum Tokyo, The British Film Institute, The Adelaide Film Festival. He is a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation new media fellowship, an emerging fields grant from the Creative Capital Foundation, and a Media Arts stipend from the Edith Russ Foundation.
Charlie White
is an artist and academic whose work ranges from photography, film, and animation, to public events, popular entertainment, and documentary archives. White received his BFA from the
School
of
Visual Arts
,
New York
, and his
MFA
from Art Center College of Design. His work has exhibited at institutions such as the Oslo Kunstforening, Norway; Magasin 3, Sweden; Domus Artium, Spain; Ober
ö
sterreichische Landesmuseen, Austria; Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, China; PS 1, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Harvard University; and many others. White
'
s writing has appeared in ARTFORUM magazine,
Words Without Pictures
published by Aperture, and most recently
Vision Anew: The Lens and Screen Arts,
published by the
University
of
California Press
. His films have screened at the Sundance Film Festival and at Director's Fortnight at
Cannes
. Six monographs of his work have been published, most recently Such Appetite (Little Brown Mushroom, 2013), and American Minor (
JPR
| Ringier, 2009). White is the editor of THE ENEMY, an online journal of art, culture, and positions, and holds the position of Professor of Fine Art at the
University
of
Southern California
.
Heber Rodriguez is a Los Angeles-based curator and writer whose research areas include Art and Technology, Internet culture, and experimental sound practices.
2011 S. Santa Fe.
Los Angeles, CA 90021
|
|
|
|
|
