Some art purists think digital works are not the real thing: you may agree or disagree with this statement, but, what's for sure is that the analogue and the digital formats are obviously interrelated. An exhibition opening later on this month at the Pittlerwerke, Leipzig, and co-curated by Richard Castelli, Dr. Dan Xu and Dr. Clara Blume, will attempt to find links between these two levels.
"Dimensions" (April 19th - July 9th) will include 60 international artworks exhibited in an architecturally intriguing space - a 10,000 square meters industrialization-era machine factory.
Featuring pioneers of the digital format such as Nam June Paik and exponents of the contemporary avantgarde, "Dimensions" explores the latest trends in electronic art but also their roots to find different levels of interrelations between art and technological developments, inviting visitors to overcome prejudices and anxieties surrounding the digital format, and look at the artworks with an open mind.
After all, as co-curator Xu explains, "New technologies are omnipresent and are increasingly becoming a projection surface for expectations and fears – from AI to blockchain."
The exhibition is divided into chapters - media and video art, immersive art, robotic art, algorithmic-generative art, and virtual and augmented reality - that illustrate how digital technologies shape and warp our perception of reality.
Historically, the exhibition begins with the French painter, photographer and sculptor François Willème (1830 -1905) who in 1859 patented a process for producing portrait sculpture using 24 cameras. By superimposing these simultaneously achieved photographic images, he created photo sculptures that could be considered the early versions of today's 3D scan.
Through a QR code visitors receive an augmented reality 3D model of the photo sculpture shown in the exhibition – a self-portrait of Willème, which they can take back home with them on their mobile phones.
Other forms of digital art are presented as immersive projections and installations: Kurt Hentschläger's fog and stroboscope installation will reawaken the senses of the visitors with light and sound stimuli, while visual artist and composer Ulf Langheinrich created especially for this show two monumental stereoscopic 3D audiovisual artworks, "Movement-L" and "Waveform-L". These visual soundscapes will allow visitors to collectively experience the tension between time, space, body and technology.
Visitors who are into textiles should check out Ivana Franke's new site-specific installation. Franke is well known for her multi-disciplinary work inspired by neuroscience and combining technology and architecture.
Her works often integrate complex monofilament structures anchored to a stainless steel construction that create ephemeral architectures when the threads are hit by spotlights.
While Franke works with filaments, Shiro Takatani explores the shape of water: his 3D water matrixes composed of computer-controlled electrovalves, allow him to transform the liquid into animated and three-dimensional gravity-defying creations.
"It is interesting to observe how the electronic arts have attained a certain maturity together with technology's development; one could even speak of a fresh new 'classicism' with its own rules, removing itself from the essence and the specifics of electronic arts," explains Castelli.
Choe U-Ram's metallic machineries like "Urbanus Female" integrating a CPU board and a motor, are a great example of this combination of digital inspirations with innovative technologies. The works represent machine-organisms with systems that resemble that of plants and that live on skyscrapers.
Some experiences included in the exhibition are merely digital, like Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw's VR system that allows to step into Leonardo da Vinci's "Virgin of the Rocks" painting and move around it, or Yang Lu's videos and images inspired by virtual reality, gaming subcultures, and popular music, that celebrate the Internet as the locus of possibilities, as a place where people can control their own identity.
There are also digital artworks inspired by contemporary experiences: Ziyang Wu's "Where Did Macy Go?" is an 11-episode animated video inspired by the epidemic that considers the collapse of old community structures, a new home-based tele-republic, and social justice under the pandemic. Originally posted on TikTok to challenge the possibility of online exhibitions, the series is a response to the volatility, complexity and confusion of our times.
One of the chapters of the exhibition - "Immersion" - is not limited to virtual reality, but also embraces physical-immersive environments: Jean Michel Bruyère / LFKs' work, such as "Le Chemin de Damastès", consists in 21 hospital beds that, wired for movement and soundtrack synchronisation by computer, form a perfect choreography, while Golnaz Behrouznia and Dominique Peysson's "Phylogenèse Inverse" (Reverse Phylogenesis) present a series of future forms of biodiversity and varied and extravagant life forms with strange anatomies and enigmatic functions.
These organisms, based on a scientific discovery focused on a jellyfish capable of reversing its life cycle allowing it to return to an earlier cellular state, show the results of a de-evolution process and invite visitors to dive into the future of the living world, raising fundamental questions about the essence of life.
The venue's history as a machine factory creates a symbolic architectural link between the physical space of the event and the digital exhibition: the machines that were produced here and that once transformed society have been replaced by a digital art revolution that is in turn contributing to change society.
Besides, the city where the factory is located, Leipzig, represents another connection with the themes of "Dimensions": it is indeed the birthplace of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. As Castelli notes, the philosopher and mathematician, "developed elements of binary logic, which formed the foundation of computer science, and was receptive to the beauty and aesthetics of the binary (digital) world, thus anticipating the core of this exhibition."
Image credits for this post
1.
Yang Lu
Doku – Digital Alaya, 2022
Courtesy of the artist & Jane Lombard Gallery
© Yang Lu
Photo: Arturo Sanchez
2.
François Willème
Selbstbildnis (selfportrait), 1860 - 1865
Photosculpture, gypsum
© ALBERTINA, Wien, Dauerleihgabe der Höheren Graphischen Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt
Photo: Bruno Klomfar, Vienna
3.
Kurt Hentschläger
Zee, 2008
Audio-visual environment: artificial fog, stroboscopes, pulse lights, surround sound
Courtesy and © Kurt Hentschläger 2008–2023
4.
Ulf Langheinrich
Alluvium, 2010-17
360° 3D stereoscopic film for AVIE
Courtesy and © Ulf Langheinrich und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
5.
Ivana Franke
Center, 2004
Installation view: Lauba, Zagreb
320 x 320 x 320 cm
Stainless steel construction, steel wire, monofilament, twelve spotlights
Courtesy LAUBA
© Ivana Franke/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
Photo: Damir Žižić
6.
Shiro Takatani
ST\LL for the 3D Water Matrix, 2014
© Shiro Takatani
Photo: Patrik Alac
7.
Choe U-Ram
Urbanus Female, 2006
Metallic material, machinery, metal halide lamp, electronic device (CPU board,
motor)
Closed: 103 (h) x 103 (w) x 241 (d) cm; open: 389 (h) x 389 (w) x 233 (d) cm
Courtesy and © U-Ram Choe
Photo: Sangtae Kim
8.
Ziyang Wu
Where Did Macy Go?, 2020
Color digital video with sound
8 Min., 53 Sek.
© Ziyang Wu
Photo: Digital Art Festival Taipei
9.
Jean Michel Bruyère / LFKs
Le Chemin de Damastès (The path of damastes), 2008
21 hospital beds, wired for movement and soundtrack synchronisation by computer, white bedding
Courtesy and © Jean Michel Bruyère / LFKs
10.
Golnaz Behrouznia & Dominique Peysson
Phylogenèse Inverse, 2022
12 objects under plexiglass
Scenographic design: Rémi Boulnois
Sound design: Florent Colautti
Courtesy and © Golnaz Behrouznia, Dominique Peysson and Rémi Boulnois and © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023 for Golnaz Behrouznia
11.
Inside view
Pittlerwerke Leipzig, 2019
© Pittlerwerke Leipzig
Photo: Anika Dollmeyer
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