Ruth Buchanan

Work from A Wayward Punctuation @ Grazer Kunstverein.

“Using methods and media such as sculpture, video, performance, language, sound, graphics and slide projection, Ruth Buchanan constructs both literary and built spaces whereby the underlying motives and questions at stake create an interplay of contingencies. At the core of the speculations conducted in these spaces are terms describing identity and the parameters of artistic action along with their historical precursors.
In the artist’s work, the syntax of these constellations appears to be determined both spatially and linguistically; conceivably a form of architecture and grammar. Through the unremitting transposition of such terms as well as concrete material and architectural relationships, Buchanan creates semantic interstices within which the existing order is tilted, favouring new relationships – possibly in order to be overridden – thereby creating the space required for new reflections on work, daily routines and emotional states.

The title of the exhibition plays on an understanding of punctuation as a method that both allows and encourages the reorganisation of interrelationships and finding of ways of expression which exist parallel to and independently of standardised and standardising formalities.” – Søren Grammel

Paul Ferragut

Work from Time Print Machine.

“DIY printing system using felt pen on blotting paper.This machine functions in a similar way to a CNC machine, with an incorporated program to print any image using a time-based algorithm. According to the grey value of a pixel on an image, the felt pen remains in contact with the blotting paper for relative periods of time. Consequently the ink will bleed through the paper creating a variety of different sized stains, gradually building the image. It can takes around 34 hours to print one colour image. The slow printing process and the imperfections we obtain every time is what makes every print unique.” – Paul Ferragut

via Today and Tomorrow.

Yngve Holen and Anne de Vries

Work from TruEYE surView.

“What if we understand material and things not just as objects but as driving actors in our daily intimacies? Commodities were always playing an important role in the arts – they became art through the artist’s ability to define them as such. But what if we don’t make a division between commodities and art-pieces anymore? Further than its use-value and exchange value „the commodity is the thing that always feels at home. (…) It is first and foremost a presence“ (Joshua Simon). Facing this our whole society becomes not just one of human beings but n endless network between subjects and objects in a fluid way, which also undergoes continuously a variety of state changes.” – W139

Rafaël Rozendaal

Work from The Shift, his current exhibition at W139 in Amsterdam.

“Wishing to reduce the world to its essence is both a feasible artistic approach and, at the same time, a ritual that appears to have no end. Reduction is indeed a recurring principle in the work of Rafael Rozendaal (born 1980 in Amsterdam), and is also his explicitly stated position. Initially, drawing was his medium: How many drawing strokes are necessary for reality to be recognisable as such? Does reality in this way perhaps reveal something new about its structure? And, influenced by the world of comics and cartoons, how can a story be captured in a minimum of images? “With a very specific language of exaggeration, simplification and abstraction,” he says, with the goal of making this action accessible in an intercultural and universal manner. Since 2000, Rafael Rozendaal’s works have mainly been internet-based. These works are websites for which he has reserved names such as itwillneverbethesame.com, intotime.com or muchbetterthanthis.com and which each present a single idea and its visual implementation in the form of a graphic film that occupies the entire website. In these films, a jelly pudding wobbles, colour sequences become fluid, or a stylised kiss is repeated over and over: Time seems to stand still, but nonetheless everything remains in motion. A small, minimal click is generally required to start off the action, or else the motion follows that of the user’s finger on the trackpad.

By including the observer in this way, Rafael Rozendaal creates situations that refine the representative relationship between action and reaction on the Internet, a relationship which is governed by no law other than that of self-confirmation. This self-righteousness thus celebrates the oft-claimed infinite nature of this medium. Rafael Rozendaal succeeds here in such an unerring manner that he has long since established himself as a pop-culture brand on the net in his own right. Faithfully following the Warhol tradition in many regards, he is able to exploit this brand in a commercial manner and to make this a part of his works at the same time. The websites can be acquired by art collectors, whose name is then entered in the title bar at the top. Recently, he made a certificate for imitators available on his website. He markets some of his ideas as applications for smartphones, while preserving the inherent logic of these works. For him, this means retaining his independence and being able to survive outside of conventional support mechanisms for art.

Producing the effect of infinity with minimal equipment and effort – the exhibition at W139 attempts to allow the observer to experience the exhibition space as an interface and himself as a committed user.” – W139

Gazira Babeli

Work from her oeuvre

“Gazira Babeli is a performance artist and filmmaker and she exists only in a virtual world. In 2006 Babeli was born in the 3-D infrastructure “Second Life”. Since then she created films and performances which can be exhibited in the “real world” as well. Her existence is a play with the myth about the real person behind the avatar. As incomprehensible as the real Babeli is as ambiguous remains her avatar. Babeli consistently brakes boundaries. She is a work of art and an artist at the same time. Her own resources are her virtual self. She does not only exists as a registered code in Second Life, she also writes the code of Second Life itself: many of her art projects are manipulations of the phenomenal world of Second Life and of its virtual nature: Tornadoes are just programmable interfaces. She does not see any difference between programmability and performative act.

Chris Cornish and Alison Moffett

Work from Cube Project.

A cube primitive is fractured and exposed to physical dynamics. A sequential test, exploring notions of space, volume and time, resulting in an object that is both poetic, turbulent and null. A collaboration with Alison Moffett.” – Chris Cornish

Marjolijn Dijkman

Work from her oeuvre.

“Through her diverse work Marjolijn Dijkman often considers the foundations of how we perceive and experience our surroundings – the conventions and categories which underlie the comprehension, or not, of the world around us. Ranging from photographic archives and films, to landscape interventions and the organisation of exhibitions and experimental residencies, Dijkman’s practice has concerned itself with for example futurology, public space, knowledge organisation, cartography, utopian architecture or environmentalism.” – Marjolijn Dijkman

Street Show – The Things Between Us @ Eyebeam (540 W. 21 St.) – organized by Michael Manning

Street Show: ‘The Things Between Us’ is an exhibition of new work from 22 different artists distributed solely through a USB Dead Drop installed at 540 W. 21 St. (@ Eyebeam Center for Art + Technology) in New York City. Dead Drops (started by Aram Bartholl) are USB flash drives installed in public locations (buildings, train stations, museums, etc) around the world to create an anonymous offline peer-to-peer file-sharing network. For The Things Between Us each artist was asked to make a piece based on the idea ofTRANSFER(whatever that meant to them) that would be unique and only available through the Dead Drop.

The Street Show exhibition format is an experiment in the absurd pursuit of creating scarcity in the distribution of digital media. Visitors to the Dead Drop are free to take a file, delete a file, take all the files and so on ad infinitum, the future distribution of the work is uncertain once installed. It places the power of  “ownership” of unique files in the hands of its audience and through this, hopes to reveal something about the culture and consumption of digital media. The work presented on the drive may end up online, be deleted, remixed, vandalized, or perhaps even trolled, its fate is in the hands of those who seek it.

In the spirit of free art & technology, the initiation of Dead Drops and other similar projects (Speedshow / BYOB) this exhibition format is completely free to reuse and remix by any and all.

Timur Si Qin

Work from The Axe Effect.

“The Axe effect is the internationally recognized name for the increased attention Axe-wearing males receive from eager, and attractive female pursuers. Regardless of where you live, you can get the Axe-Effect by going to a store near you and purchasing one of our fine products.” – Unilever

“The Axe effect sculptures are objects that embody the system attractors of the contingent epic of evolution. The arms-race and the mating-call violently and erotically interpenetrate in the guise of a product-placement (an evolved strategy in itself) releasing synthetic pheromones to further compete for space and attention. The variations in forms of designed products are testament to the divergent pathways of bio-morphological memes and cultural norms, having undergone a state-change (in the neo-materialist sense) from evolutionary strategy to marketable ergonomics. The intricate patterns of fluid dynamics are a direct display of the beauty of contingency, a beauty embodied by the mechanisms of evolution itself.” – Timur Si Qin

Hannah Whitaker

Work from Victory over the Sun!.

“Much of the work takes visual cues from pioneering formalists, but does so at a critical distance. The show borrows the visual clarity of basic shapes and a de-saturated palette from these artists, but uses this language to its own end, poking affectionate fun at their anachronistic linearity and macho determinism. Often through visual punning, the exhibition forces illogical juxtapositions of such disparate imagery as studio-made lunar phases, a hula-hoop performer, dramatic natural phenomena, and still lifes composed of the detritus of everyday human experience. Combining cosmic theater with earthy texture, the connections between photographs are nonliteral and lead the work to embrace its own failure to achieve piritual transcendence.” – press release from Kumukumu Gallery.