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Stephanie Davenport
617-818-0162
stephanied@artinteractive.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cambridge, MA (Jan 08, 2004) - Art Interactive inaugurates its 2004 season with
eVolution: The Art of Living Systems, a group exhibition of art works that represent over a decade of artists’ explorations into aspects of "artificial life" and autonomous, behavior-driven systems. Organized by Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, eVolution showcases four interactive projects by five internationally acclaimed artists: Bush Soul #3 by Rebecca Allen; Giver of Names by David Rokeby; A-Volve by artist team Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau; and Instant Places by Maciej Wisniewski. eVolution will be on view from January 24 through April 11. A series of educational programs is scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition (see details below).
The works included in eVolution have been featured individually in art festivals and exhibitions worldwide. Their installation as an ensemble at Art Interactive will give gallery visitors an opportunity to explore the subtle transformation of our understanding of artificial life. Guest curator Paul commented that “by uniting these works for this exhibition, I intend to highlight both the 'eVolutionary' aspects of artificial life and the 'eVolution' of an art practice towards a 'living' art work.” eVolution chronicles various forms of artistic practice in the realm of artificial life and also raises fundamental questions about the concepts of intelligence and consciousness; our social interaction with increasingly independent machines; possible levels of man-machine symbiosis; and the relationship between artists and their 'creations' which take on a life of their own.
In Rebecca Allen's Bush Soul #3, part of the artist’s ongoing project Emergence, the user is implicated into a virtual environment inhabited by autonomous characters. Users control their avatar (the graphic representation of a user in virtual environments) with a joystick in order to navigate the environment and interact with the creatures living in the virtual world in ever-changing encounters. The project explicitly focuses on social behaviors and uses artificial life algorithms to specify the relationships between characters and objects; encounters with the different characters and objects in this virtual world can lead to very different exchanges – a character may be hostile or friendly, the user may be able to "inhabit" a character or receive feedback through the joystick. Bush Soul is an aesthetic exploration of virtual identity in its relation to concepts of embodiment and disembodiment.
David Rokeby's Giver of Names is a computer system that attempts to arrive at conclusions about objects by analyzing and describing them. The objects are chosen by visitors and placed on an empty pedestal. The computer performs various levels of image processing (outline analysis, division into separate objects or parts, color analysis, texture analysis, etc.) and then uses an associative database of objects, ideas, and sensations to come up with words and concepts associated with the object. The "processing" of the object – from real to abstracted – is then projected on a screen. Giver of Names is an exploration of the various levels of perception that allow us to arrive at interpretations and creates an anatomy of meaning as defined by associative processes. Giver of Names does not only provide a glimpse of the machine's "state of mind" but also touches upon the possibilities of representing an object in an artistic medium, a process that always entails transformations.
A-Volve allows visitors to create virtual creatures and interact with them in the space of a water-filled glass pool. By drawing a shape with their finger on a touch screen, visitors produce virtual 3D creatures that automatically come "alive," and swim in the real water of the pool, reacting to the visitors' hand movements in the water. Aesthetics becomes the crucial factor in the survival of the fittest: the form designed by the visitor determines the creatures' fitness for survival and ability to mate and reproduce in the pool. A-Volve literally translates eVolutionary rules into the virtual realm and at the same time blends the virtual with the real world; yet human creation and decision play a decisive role in this virtual ecosystem. A-Volve is a reminder of the complexity of any life form (organic or inorganic) and of our role in shaping artificial life.
Instant Places by Maciej Wisniewski is a "software fiction" that creates a networked space for autonomous characters – predators (hawks) and prey (mice). Each of the characters has distinct behaviors and is identified by its name, location, and state of activity, which is displayed next to the creature. While the characters are visible to the audience only on the respective computer / screen they currently "live" on, they are inhabiting one seamless, networked data landscape. They can perceive and interact with each other through instant messaging and can move instantaneously between different data places (the computers connected to the network) regardless of their location, no matter if they are in the same room or dispersed across the globe. A hawk cruising through the sky may suddenly dive down, appear on the screen with the mice and hunt or catch a mouse. Collapsing the concepts of physical space, Instant Places poses a new form of space that contradicts our traditional notions of geography and distance, and the project introduces a new from of instantaneous communication and agency.
http://www.artinteractive.org/shows/eVolution/
eVolution was made possible through the generous support of the following sponsors: Genelec, KeyTec, and sax3D.
Events/Educational Programs:
• Friday, Jan 23, 6-8pm: Opening Reception.
• Saturday, Feb 28, 5pm: Curator's Talk with Christiane Paul followed by a reception.
$5 admission, Member's free.
• Thursday, Mar 25, 7pm: Panel Discussion with Jeffrey Huang (Harvard) and Martin C. Martin (MIT), Moderated by Christiane Paul.
For more details about these programs or to schedule other educational visits, please contact education@artinteractive.org
About Art Interactive:
Art Interactive is a non-profit art space founded in 2001. The gallery’s mission is to provide a public forum that fosters self-expression and human interaction through the development and exhibition of art that is contemporary, experimental, and participatory. Opening hours: Saturdays and Sundays from 12-6pm or by appointment. For more information, please email your inquiry to info@artinteractive.org or call 617-498-0100.
