"Fractals and Chaos" by Frances Whitney, Norman Ballard, Nam June Paik

The net art section of the exhibition focuses on the Internet as a collaborative, participatory medium and shared environment. Three of the projects--glasbead, OPEN_Studio, and p-Soup--are multi-user environments that allow on-line visitors to collaborate in the creation of visuals and musical sequences from remote locations. John Klima's glasbead is a multi-user musical instrument and 'toy' that enables players to exchange sound files and compose musical sequences. OPEN_Studio by Andy Deck is an on-line 'drawing board' allowing multiple users to pick colors and line shapes and collaborate in the creation of drawings. With Mark Napier's p-Soup, users can choose forms and shapes accompanied by sounds and participate in the composition of geometric designs that are a result of their interaction as well as the artwork's algorithms. In all of these projects, the artists have set parameters for the creation of the work, but the art would not exist without the user's/player's input and participation.

 

In different ways, Apartment by Martin Wattenberg and Marek Walczak, netomat™ by Maciej Wisniewski, and The Last Real Net Art Museum by Olia Lialina (with multiple other artists) all focus on the configurations and reconfigurations of information and narratives. Apartment invites users to type in words which create rooms in a two-dimensional floorplan. This translation is not random but the result of the artists' categorization of the Thesaurus, assigning specific words to a specific room (the word 'book,' for example, creates a library). Users' apartments are clustered into cities according to themes and topics, transcending the meaning of each singular apartment in a larger, relational semantic structure.

 

Netomat™ creates a different form of relational interplay: it is an alternative browser that doesn't interpret the Net as static web pages but as one huge database of information. In response to keywords typed in by the users,netomat™ streams related text, imagery and sound to the screen, and creates the impression of an infinite datascape. The Last Real Net Art Museum takes yet another approach to the subject by providing an archive of artists' variations on Olia Lialina's project My Boyfriend Came Back From The War, which each of the artists reinterprets through the use of different technologies.

 

In its own distinctive way, each of the projects uses the prominent characteristics of the Internet--an open system and participatory medium that allows for seemingly endless reconfigurations of data--and makes its unique statement on "network culture."

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SCULPTURE of LIGHT-LASER-VIDEO-STEEL-SOUND

 

Fractals and Chaos, is a sensory feast of light fractal projections and looped laser sequences projected on a massive spiral shaped sculpture, creating one of the most forward and cool forms of expression in contemporary art.

 

Inspired by fractal and chaos theories, the work was produced in 1994 by renowned artists/designer, Frances Whitney with long time friends and collaborators Norman Ballard and Nam June Paik, and composer Elliot Sharp.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ART

 

Technology is the method of creation of the art in this show, as well as a theme, addressing issues of humanity in the age of technology.

 

Agnes Denes is an American artist/scholar of international renown.  One of the originators of Conceptual art, Denes has investigated the physical and social sciences, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, art history, poetry and music and transformed her explorations into unique works of visual art.  Denes is also a pioneer of environmental art, dealing with ecological, cultural and social issues in her work which is often monumental in scale.

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evo1 presents Agnes Denes’ signature environmental works, Wheatfield – A Confrontation, and Tree Mountain, as well as Masterplan-Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie, a recent project commissioned by the government of Holland, and Uprooted and Deified exhibited in 2001 at the Venice Biennial and Goteborgs Internationella Konstbiennal, in Sweden.

 

In 1990, Denes was invited to the Kremlin to participate in the Global Forum on Environment and Development for Human Survival, an international conference of spiritual and parliamentary leaders, scientists and artists, chaired by Mikhail Gorbechov. She received a standing ovation for her presentation.

 

Artists Frances Whitney and Agnes Denes are members of Art and Science Collaborations, Inc. ASCI was founded in 1988 by Cynthia Pannucci, a pioneer in creating one of the few art and technology organizations in the USA. It has become a magnet for some of the best examples of this type of contemporary art and for artists and technologists wishing to collaborate in its creation. ASCI is one of the most comprehensive "art-sci" information resources in the world and presents symposia, competitions, and exhibitions. Its distinguished board includes leading scientists and artists.

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DOCUMENTARY PHOTO COLLAGE

 

Documentary photographers strive to present objective images and intuitive perspectives of human events in such a way as to capture a sense of immediacy. In doing so, their photos have often contributed to social change by provoking strong feelings in those who view them. Included in the show is a 1998 photo collage series by Rene Burri entitled: The Impossible Mirror; Blind Indifference; All The Insects Together Weigh More Than The Entire Human Population.

 

Rene Burri born in Switzerland in 1933, is a member of Magnum Photos, the world-reknowned agency formed in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, David “Chim” Seymour and George Rodger. His career has taken him around the world photographing global conflicts as the war zones in Vietnam, Cambodia and Beirut, to the famous and infamous - artists as Picasso, Giacometti, and Le Corbusier, to portraits of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

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DIGITAL ART and VIDEO

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Marty St. James (UK) will present 6 digital prints from his Oneiric series (2001) and two projection based video works – Familyway (1999), a single channel video projection onto a brick construction, and boy/girl diptych, a two screen two channel video projection. 

 

boy/girl diptych was shown as part of the international exhibition "Painting The Century:101 Portrait Masterpieces" at National Portrait Gallery in London, Oct - Feb 2001, with Picasso, Freud, Bacon, Munch, Warhol, etc. Each artist was chosen to represent one year of the century. St. James’ work represented the final year, 2000.

 

The passing of time has over the ages been the subject of many works of art – from H.G. Wells' Time Machine drama to Salvador Dali’s portrayals of soft watches. But only with the advent of film and video has it been technically possible to record the phenomenon. London-based Marty St. James uses “memory, time passing, and change” as a theme in his photographs, video and digital works.

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COMPUTER ANIMATION in FINE ART and POP CULTURE

 

At this moment in the history of art, digital arts are part of both the fine art and pop culture worlds. The work of artistic and technological innovators has influenced, and become mainstream to, mass culture since the 70’s as computers evolved and graphic programs were included in every commercial art studio. The exhibition includes groundbreaking work created by new media company Kleiser-Walczak, producers of both fine art and commercial projects, such as the computer animated stereoscopic film for the Philip Glass-Robert Wilson opera, Monsters of Grace, and Universal Studio’s entertainment ride, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman.  Creative Director, Diana Walczak, will present these works as well as their current cutting edge animation,  Little Miss Spider.

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SOUNDSCAPE 

 

Bitstreams

This CD features sound works from "BitStreams," the 2001 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, focusing on the extraordinary range of artistic expression made possible through digital technologies. Curated by Debra Singer, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, with artistic advisor Stephen Vitiello.

 

Participating Sound Artists: Gregor Asch (DJ Olive the Audio Janitor), Brian Conley, DISC, David Gamper, Ann Hamilton and Andrew Deutsch, John Herndon (A Grape Dope), John Hudak, Brandon LaBelle, V. Michael (The Spacewürm), Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid), Ikue Mori, Jim O'Rourke, Andrea Parkins, Marina Rosenfeld, Elliott Sharp, Fred Szymanski (Laminar), töshöklabs, Stephen Vitiello, Gregory Whitehead and Pamela Z.

 

An Autumn Breath

Russian electro-acoustic composer Artemiy Artemiev and American digital artist Laurence Gartel are pioneers in their fields. Introduced during Gartel’s exhibition at Moscow's Gallery L in April 2000, they began an international collaboration communicating through the Internet. Inspired by Gartel's digital artwork, Artemiev composed this 19-minute work. An Autumn Breath is an ambient work, performed on 2 fender pianos, evoking a mood of calmness and peace. At the 10th minute a quiet rhythm sounds like falling leaves.

 

Resonance of Peace

This piece for electronic instruments, voice, and computer, resulted from discussions between Nina Colosi (US) and Andrei Smirnov, founder and director of the Theremin Center for Electro-Acoustic Music in Moscow. It restructures elements of Russian and American folk music into new forms creating a conceptual perspective of the sound of peace. 

 

Lullaby and Closer #1 and #2

Electronic works by New York based Yugoslavian composer Milica Paronosic,  encompass Yugoslavian folk music and sculpted sound effects.

 

Vom Boot Zum Haus

Rechenzentrum, from Germany, blends the sound of a chamber ensemble with sound effects.

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ARTISTS IN MOSCOW

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Nikolay Selivanov, multi-media artist and director of the new media department at the Russian State University for Humanities in Moscow, will present two works – Picnic on the Edge of a Forest and Shamanism: The Time of Fulfillment.

 

Picnic on the Edge of a Forest, a collaborative work for CD-ROM and web site (VRML) by Nikolay Selivanov and Nani Selivanova, is a visualization of the object of memory, the metaphor of our existing in the parallel realities. This project has been exhibited (1998-2000) in Moscow, Canada and Croatia.

 

Shamanism: The Time of Fulfillment is a multi-media performance in the form of a scientific lecture about ancient ideas of Shamanism and the newest achievements of science – nano-technologies.

 

Russian and American digital art, photography and music by Laurence Gartel / Artimey Artimiev, Andrei Smirnov / Nina Colosi (US), photographer Jacqueline Bates (US), composer Milica Paronosic (US), and oil paintings by Anna Rochegova (Russian/US) have been incorporated into Tronica:||:Evolution, a digital comic strip by David Bates (US).