Riverside Gallery

Daily, Friday 18 January – Wednesday 20 February 2013

This show brings together a diverse range of work by a group of former and current students from the Computational Studio Arts course at Goldsmiths, University of London. The artists here are engaged in research and work from DIY media and wearable technologies to data visualisation, as well as performance and interactive or multi-sensory installations.

DPS – Fabio Lattani Antinori

DPS is an attempt at combining random generated content, gathered through parsing real time data from a combination of social networking online websites. Randomly selected words, taken from the passage concerning Babylon contained in the Book of Revelations, are used to download images which are then combined, together with the textin a double aged spread, one of the most common layout styles used for magazines and newspapers. The content generated makes space for new meaning, derived from unusual associations of images and text. DPS is a readymade artwork, dealing with the tendency of seeing meaningful patterns in random or meaningless data, a phenomenon that is taken into consideration in modern techniques of mass persuasion. Actions such as gathering of text and images, positioning and cropping of the images, font selection and alignment of the text are completely automatised, the decisions are made exclusively by the software, which in this context acts as an independent ‘designer’. From this point of view the artwork raises questions regarding authenticity, originality and power of persuading the individual in the society of mass information. Fabio Lattanzi Antinori’s work is concerned with the individual and the group from a social, historical and cultural perspective focussed around the relationship between corporate systems, notions of power and control and the language of the interior in the postmodern society. His practice traverses the territory of popular culture in the age of mass information with a specific interest in the sacred role of data, seen as a critical tool to provide an interpretation of reality and an attempt to objectify it. His work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums including the V&A in London, the Benaki Museum in Athens, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Biennal de Valencia, the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. From initial studies in philosophy, architecture, music and typography, he has developed a language which ranges from kinetic sculptures to screen print, photography, performance, video and installations. He is currently finishing his second year at the MFA Computational Studio Arts at Goldsmiths in London, where he lives and works.http://fabiolattanziantinori.com/

An Evolution – Ipek Köprülü

A series of performances exhibited in the form of photography and video documentation.

The performances aim to question the experience and relationship between the performer and the audience by integrating new media and technology into live performances. Inspired by Renaissance paintings, 20th century photography, Surrealism and television, ‘An Evolution’ is a journey through these media’s contribution to shifts in the politics of representation and visual image. The performance installations combine the digital and the analogue and also blur the line between the ‘real’ and the ‘non-real’ by bringing sensorial objects as well as digital projections, sounds and video work within the space.

Ipek Köprülü focuses on the idea of presence and absence, as well as the use and effect of technology in live and mediated performance. She explores differences in the viewer’s experience of her work when presented both in the digital and analogue domain. Köprülü uses photography, video and the internet to document and distribute her performances. These media play a significant role in her work and research. Köprülü’s research investigates artistic representations of technology in relation to the body in performance. While her body is often the center piece of her performances, she also makes use of sculptural objects and technological appliances such as television sets, cameras and projections to engage with and create an interactive relationship with the spectator. www.ipek-koprulu.com

 
Here – Cedar Zhou

Involved Techniques: Processing, SQlite, Twitter

Information technologies provide a new dimension for information exchange and expression. However they are not just helping us to communicate and express but also mediate the content itself. When the virtual artifacts ubiquitously make themselves tangible in the physical space, we start to ask what are the boundaries between the two. “Here” is visualizing images and emotions which are shared by visitors, exploring the relationship between people perceptions and the two coded spaces.

Cedar Zhou is an artist, whose work mainly dealing with the juxtaposition of physical and virtual world. His creation has been inspired by the transition of modern communication technology and their sociological and psychological impact on people. His work combines elements of computer science, visual art and storytelling, using real-world generated data to create multi-sensory experiences into physical space, allowing people to experience the systems they create in an artistic way.www.cedarzhou.com

 
Brownie Digital (2012 – 2013) – Catherine Weir
Modified Kodak Box Brownie Flash III Camera and Custom Software

Realised in collaboration with Fernando Galdon

In 1900 Kodak produced their first Box Brownie camera, retailing for $1 This simple low-cost camera played a key role in bringing the medium of photography to a wide audience and establishing Kodak as a household name.  The company continued to manufacture the Brownie series up until around 1980; making it their most iconic camera.

Digital photography is in some ways the 21st century equivalent of the Box Brownie; making simple low-cost photography easily available to a huge audience.  But while 35mm film is disappearing from most people’s cameras, more and more turn to applications such as Instagram to create images that appear analogue but without any of the associated labour.

This project combines the convenience of digital photography with the body of a 1950s Brownie Flash camera in an attempt to bring a sense of effort and of trial and error to digital photography.  The nature of this camera means that it will not create perfect digital images, but images unique to its setup that the photographer must work with the camera to create.

The hope is that this camera will not only encourage greater care and consideration on the part of the photographer but act as a reminder of the satisfaction achieved upon capturing the best photographs.

Catherine M. Weir (b. 1988, Scotland) is an artist working with photographic and digital media to explore the ways in which our sense of memory, time and of place is shaped by evolving technologies.  Her work often blends elements of what may broadly be termed analogue and digital practices in an effort not to extol the virtues of one over the other, but to examine the relationship between the two and to reflect on their distinct material and emotive properties.

Her work has been exhibited widely at galleries in both Scotland and London, where she currently lives and works.  Past exhibitions include New Contemporaries 2011 at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and Futureproof 2010 at StreetLevel Photoworks, Glasgow.

Her present research is concerned with the materiality of the photograph and the significance of the index within a digital framework.  By exploiting the meta-data embedded in every digital photograph to create locative, time-based works, she questions if this data may equate to a digitally-constructed index comparable to the physical trace carried by celluloid film. www.cmweir.com

CRAFTING HUMAN PERCEPTION – Francesca Perona

By engaging critically with the developments in wearable technologies, ‘Crafting Human Perception’ questions the traditional relationship between textile artefacts and the human sensory system. Static surfaces are transformed into interactive haptic membranes, traditionally crafted fabrics are functionally augmented through embedded electronics.

The aim of the project is to extend the natural bandwidth of human perception and to encourage the rediscovery of our own body through touch. When the visitors engage with the crafted surface, they initiate a cognitive feedback loop between the internal systems of touch and hearing. The immersive multi-sensory experience creates an intimate sensual dynamics that heightens both physical and sensory self-awareness.

The materials and craft techniques used in the process are exploited as pure expressive media, their peculiar textural and functional features are augmented through technology. The work aims to define a new hybrid aesthetics that balances tradition and innovation, industrial and organic, permanent and ephemeral qualities. The artifacts resulting from this process become therefore entities of indefinite nature, relational objects with latent interactive and transformative potential.

Originally from Italy, Francesca Perona is a London-based textile designer with a background in traditional print design and experienced in digital print design and textile trend research. She recently graduated with an MA in Computational Arts (distinction) from Goldsmith’s Department of Computing.

Her current work integrates digital technologies and physical computing with traditional craft. Her practice shifts the attention of design from products to aesthetic and sensory user experiences, in the attempt of blurring the obsolete static boundaries in the relationship between textiles and the human body. Considering the implications of new technologies such as synthetic biology and tangible computing on our sensorium, Francesca aims to re-contextualise textile design at the intersection of art, computer science and material science.  In this process skin becomes the supreme model of smart material, networked system and interactive medium. The ultimate aim of her practice is to challenge Textiles to mimic, augment and craft directly our epidermis and flesh, transforming our bodies into living textile interfaces.www.francescaperona.comhttp://www.craftedbody.tumblr.com/
http://materialplay.wordpress.com/
http://vimeo.com/francescaperona