Dear List,
In advance of the opening of "Database Imaginary" (the web site is now
live), I'd like to offer an examples from another exhibition ...
I recently saw the Bruce Mau show "Massive Change - The Future of
Global Design" at Vancouver Art Gallery http://www.massivechange.com. I
was struck by how much it reminded me of installation shots of the
Family of Man photographic exhibition from the 1950s, which made me
consider the quandry of presenting information without being simply
'didactic'. I enjoyed the presentation of new materials, but when it
came to texts and figures, it did groan slightly under the weight of
text, like lots of interpretation, without the subject of the
interpretation.
So, the show was good at transforming information into knowledge, but
is that the job of designers rather than artists? Do we have examples
of artists who transform data into knowledge?
Yours,
Beryl
> Data and art: November Theme of the Month
>
> On November 14th the exhibition "Database Imaginary" opens at the
> Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre, and CRUMB's Sarah Cook is
> one of the curators <http://databaseimaginary.banff.org/>.
>
> In a recent informal conversation between CRUMB and artist Graham
> Harwood, it was noted that one of the crucial moments missing from any
> historical contextualisation of new media art is the point at which we
> all started to deal with more and more data in our daily lives. He
> commented that what was needed was not a gallery designed for the
> exhibition of new media art, but a space - whether gallery or not -
> where we can, in his words ‘experience information’.
>
> How do curators deal with the aesthetics of data and artists' attempts
> to transform information into knowledge?
>
> Lev Manovich claims that "... as the practice of Cardiff and
> Liberskind
> shows, it is at the interactions of the physical space and the data
> that some of the most amazing art of our time is being created." But
> is physical space compatible with disembodied data? Can data be
> embodied in a space? What would a space for the experience of
> information be like?
>
>
> Reference: Manovich, Lev (2003) “The poetics of augmented space.” In:
> John Caldwell and Anna Everett (eds.) New media: Practices of
> digitextuality. New York: Routledge. p. 90.
>
>
>
> N.B. This month we are diverging slightly by not having invited
> respondents. The debate, as usual, is open to everyone, so please do
> chip in!
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Beryl Graham, Senior Research Fellow, New Media Art
> School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
> Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
>
> CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
> http://www.crumbweb.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *********************************************************************
> Professor Johnny Golding
> Professor of Philosophy in the Visual Arts
> & Communication Technologies
> Dept. of Creative, Critical, and Communication Studies
>
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Beryl Graham, Senior Research Fellow, New Media Art
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org
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