Take a trip to digital culture art museums in London art galeries. Museum and digital culture new perspectives and research
Objective
I wrote about Digital art exhibitions, 3D Art, Animation, software technological art rendering artwork and exhibitions digital wall art and digital Art Prints. Take a trip to digital culture art museums in London art galeries. Read about museum and digital culture new perspectives and research.
The OBJECTIVE of the section on digital Art exhibitions was to explain :
- The different types of digital exhibitions from a historical perspective.
- How audiences engage with digital art, and explore the ways we encode information, on a daily basis, through digital media
- To highlight technology based art work in art galleries.
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This section offers the user an intellectually interactive perspective.
It will share the historical experience and aesthetics of digital art and different galleries especially in the US, UK and Germany .
Digital art exhibitions make us to think about relationships in art and design and, in particular, the relationships between analogue and digital art.
Digital engagement with the aesthetics of arts forums is rising and a new relationship is developing between art and science . Last year at the Barbican’s Digital Revolution Exhibition artists, filmmakers, musicians, architects, designers and videogame developers took part in a sell-out event.
The vision of the exhibition organisers is to create a culturally diverse platform by understanding computational media as core to the contemporary culture.
These exhibitions allow us to question identity in the physical world. The exhibitions apparently are interesting and visitors who go to such exhibitions spent 3 to 4 hours happily enjoying and transformation of the mindset digitally.
Digital Art for sale at London Galeries where you can meet digital artists from around the world
Why are London’s art galleries Barbican, Tate Modern, ICA, Victoria & Albert museums moving towards Digital Art Exhibitions? What is the significance of this shift in the global economy.
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AIM
The aim of this blog is to describe how computer and digital based art is gaining in popularity. This chapter traces the historical origins of digital art. It has been an interesting exercise to find out in particular how the different galleries in London are collaborating internationally with digital artists and curators. This page will cover the topics in brief as Digital Art exhibitions is an exhaustive topic. It is mainly a taster for anybody interested in digital art. For enthusiasts there is a book called White Heat Cold Logic devoted to digital art. The blog is laid out to explain New Media Art. What is happening today is that technology is doing a lot of creative work. Artists can work from their laptops, mountaintops, office spaces, by the seaside and as the society is becoming digitized so is the art. The digital art exhibitions can be meeting grounds for intellectual people. Although, I dont recommend a visit to the exhibitons niether do I endorse them all the same the exhibitions allow new forms of interaction and an amusing experience and intellectual stimulation.
There is variable information on this blog for diffrent types of audiences. Digital Art has been evolving for last fifty years and despite backlash from various groups and anti technology groups. The exhibitions are gaining momeantum with packed audience houses and sell out events. There is a lot of material on the web. However, there was no other blog like this therefore it may be an interesting and hopefully informative read.
I interviewed Dr Joel Mckim Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College :
- The podcast explains how digital art works are bridging the gaps between fields and systems of knowledge.
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What is the difference between New Media Art and Traditional Art exhibitions? What is New Media Art?
Why are London’s art galleries Barbican, Tate Modern, ICA, Victoria & Albert museums moving towards Digital Art Exhibitions? What is the significance of this shift in the global economy.
The fight between corporate interests, governmental interests, and public interests gave birth to the web today. This led to the inter-connectivity and interactivity of the internet since the 1980s and is largely responsible for new media art. Scientists, architects, mathematicians, software engineers, artists and musicians who have varied interets in their respective fields inspire a lot of current new media art. The artists continue to work with many emerging media – from virtual reality to mobile phones.
There is much contemplation on how to define new media art? At present, art is stepping out of its traditional form and allowing people to build their own experiences with it. Non-linearity describes a project that escapes from the conventional linear narrative coming from novels, theatre plays and movies. Non-linear art usually requires audience participation or at least, the fact that the “visitor” is taken into consideration by the representation thus, altering the displayed content. The participatory aspect of new media art, which for some artists has become integral, emerged from Allan Kaprow’s Happenings and became with the growth of the Internet, a significant component of contemporary art. New media art includes algorithms, mathematics, telecommunications, digital information systems, computers, software and data visualisation. The graphic image shows that a fine line separates fine art and computer art. EXHIBIT 3
New media art is not a new concept and has been evolving over time. The success of digital art exhibitions in the last ten years in galleries and museums across the globe shows that the digital era has set in.
Next I will consider the transformation of exhibitions in galleries and museums that have occurred in the digital era.
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The information in this post is based on the (guest) lecture by Dr Lambert.
Computer Arts Society (CAS): Pioneering contributions through research at Birkbeck College to the Victoria and Albert museums for digital archives
Special thanks to :
CAS Chairman, Dr Nicholas Lambert
CACHe (Computer Arts, Contexts, histories etc) research project undertaken at University of London Birkbeck College.
History of Computer Art Exhibitions
In the 1950s and 60s access to computers and computer aided technology was very limited as there were no graphical interfaces. Many of the early practitioners, computer scientists and mathematicians programmed their own computers. Thus ensuring sole use of computer creativity. During this era only research laboratories and corporations could afford computing technologies. The artists were programming the computers themselves so they had the opportunity to experiment. They considered the computer as an autonomous machine that would enable them to carry out visual experiments in an objective manner. More information on the history of computer art can be found at the Victoria and Albert museum’s institution’s website.
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Experimental Arts Technology Exhibitions
1966 Experimental Arts Technology (E.A.T) and Bell labs organised a series of performances enabling ten contemporary artists and thirty engineers and scientists to use the new technologies. The nine evenings of art and technology were huge collaborative show in New York. The show was not a success but it paved the way for collaborative groups to work together. In those days Bell labs became the hub for artists and musicians to use the equipment out of hours. The event is recognised in the art world for shaping the pivotal relationship between art and technology. This led to the development of early computer-generated animation such as the microfilm printer that was able to expose letters and shapes onto 35mm film. Although the seeds of this were planted at EAT exhibitions.
Much as changed since then – the emergence of 3D printing we know today has introduced a new bridge to new media art, joining the virtual and the physical worlds. This was not possible in Bell labs. The rise of the use of this technology has allowed artists to blend the computational base of new media art with the traditional physical form of sculpture. A pioneer in this field was artist Jonty Hurwitz who created the first known anamorphosis sculpture using this technique.
Cybernetic Digital Art Exhibition
Cybernetic Art uses computer networks as medium. Cybernetics was introduced in 1968 by the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London for contemporary art exhibitions. Cybernetic Serendipity was the landmark exhibition curated by Jasia Reichardt in 1968. This exhibition at the ICA became the focus of attention and attracted national and international press. Cybernetic Serendipity was the first international exhibition in the UK between the arts and new technology. This exhibition was designed by Franciszka Themerson and presented the work of over 130 participants including composers, engineers, artists, mathematicians and poets. The exhibition ran from 2 August – 20 October 1968 and was seen by some 60,000 visitors.
Its aim was to present an area of activity which manifested artists’ involvement with science, and scientists’ involvement with the arts: in particular to show the links between the random systems employed by artists, composers and poets, and those involved with the making and the use of cybernetic devices.
Cybernetic Serendipity dealt with possibilities rather than achievements, especially since in 1968 computers had not yet revolutionised music, art, or poetry, in the same way that they had revolutionised science.
The biggest dilemma for this project was that funding was scarce as cooperative funding was from technological companies such as IBM. IBM diverted funds to the military at the height of the Vietnam War and worked on reduced profits.
Despite lack of funding the exhibition unearthed some of the tensions and underlined the importance of technological art in galleries. It also highlighted how these works are presented for example the idea of feedback and things that would show transformational changes.
The exhibition itself was popular and engaging, however the critics were sceptical about how machines would turn out drawings. This exhibition was also important because it laid the foundation blocks which are practiced even till today in digital art galleries.
After the exhibition in 1968 there was no other exhibition like it for many years and it has gained historical importance because it proved to be a landmark exhibition of its time. It has attracted alot of media attention recently due to its pioneering contribution to digital art.
Los Angeles County Museum of Exhibition
In 1970 Maurice Tuchman curator of modern art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) had a massive art and technological show. The purpose of the LACMA exhibition was to evaluate how technological companies could create art forms.
100 artists were sent to technological companies in California and that was problamatic. It was hoped that their creative impact would create art forms never seen before.
Butt the conflicts between the artists and technological companies surfaced during certain residencies.
This was due to the ideological reluctance of some artists to enter into skills exchange with the business sector. Thus underlying tensions were exposed between the scientists and artists.
It also uncovered tensions between political activism in the companies and the military. As some of the activities in these companies were aimed at military.
The show went ahead but it was unsuccessful.
Tuchman examined the reasons for the project’s failure and found that the image projected by the artists, misunderstandings that arose during the collaboration and the imbalance between limited resources and unlimited ideas, lead to its downfall. This exhibition cast a shadow over collaborative works of art. Tuchman concludes by describing the difficulties of organizing and installing works in the American pavilion at the Osaka World Exposition.
SIGGRAPH – THE MODERN DAY ART CENTRE for Digital Art Exhibitions
By 1974, ACM SIGGRAPH steps in. It is an international organisation for graphic artists and designers that has been fostering and celebrating innovation in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. Siggraph was formed around the time the interchange occurred between the special effects (software) industry, NASA, the military and artists in North America. Their aim is to build communities that invent, educate, inspire, and redefine the computer graphics landscape. Artists specialize in 3D images, Textro mapping and scientific techniques.
Siggraph Exhibition , Victoria Albert Museums & CAS Project
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This is an example of a global collaboration between organisations in the US and art gallery in the UK. Patric Prince is an American art historian and collector of Computer art . She was responsible for organising the SIGGRAPH computer art exhibition in 1986. Prince’s husband Robert Holzman worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, where computer graphics animations were being produced in the Computer Graphics Laboratory from 1977 onwards for the purposes of scientific research.
Owing to the forward-thinking nature of the laboratory, and Holzman’s own interest in the fine arts, artists were able to exploit the potential of the powerful equipment. In 1977 David Em was the Lab’s first artist-in-residence. Whilst there he created what is thought to be the first navigable virtual world to be produced by an artist. Patric amassed one of the most extensive collections of computer art, consisting of around 200 original art works, and a substantial archive charting the rise of computer-generated arts. Thanks to the CAS research project undertaken at Birkbeck they managed to obtain Patric’s work and these were donated to the Victoria & Albert museum in London. The archive includes Patric’s correspondence with artists, conference papers, exhibitions cards and catalogues, and a library of books on the field of computer art and computer graphics. The Patric Prince archive can be viewed by appointment at Blythe House.
By 2014 there is an automatic approach to real-time facial tracking and animation. A single video camera is used that does not require calibration for each individual user as before.This video shows how regression and adaptations are performed alternatively. The new technology of facal tracking and animation techniques and Siggraph approach offer an attractive solution to consumer level applications.
50 Year’s On……
CP Snow diagonised the lack of critical engagement between the sciences and humanities as far back as 1959. Given this, it seems crucial that it is also accessible to all. Not merely to engineers, scientists, politicians and policy-makers, but also to artists, commentators and the general public. Much has changed in fifty years. Computers havent got smaller ; they’ve got much, much larger and our culture is shaped by digital archeology. Art galleries such as the ICA takes this responsibility seriously at its golden anniversary in 2012 and starts to highlight artists.
It changes its focus and mission to support visual and performance artists. Technological literacy was on the rise from 1962 and there was a transformation from the smoking industrial architecture of the 20th century to the intangible digital architecture we see today.
As a result the leadership and guidance of institutions in particular art galleries with the help of artists was required to frame the discussions to enlarge the vocabulary of art. Society in developed countries is consumed by digital infrastructure, communications, architecture and design at every level and even though the transformation is subtle, but it exists. It doesnt make it less pervasive. You only have to look around and the foundation of our personal lives revolves around digital culture. What we do not see is the way multinational coperations operate ; they underpin global communications from the satelite relays we consult every time we get GPS directions to global wars. The institutions and galleries continue to work out the relvance of digital art exhibitions and how to display and communicate that.
The Victoria & Albert museums has more recently started to dig deeper into digital art because of political pressures. The reason for this is because included in their collections are a pair of “fast fashion” Primark jeans made in the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, whose collapse in 2013 claimed some 1,130 lives. It also includes a set of Katy Perry-branded false eyelashes, handmade by impoverished villagers in central Java for a penny a pair.
The collection also contain objects that tell more explicitly digital stories: Defence Distributed’s now-notorious 3D-printed handgun, and a Motorola wearable computer used by Tesco to monitor the activities of its warehouse workers.The art galleries are succumbed by political, social and financial pressures at every stage. The complex networks shapes and designs the digital system of communication and distribution of art galleries. By drawing connections that underlie within the social process and to think critically about our relationship with the digital machines and artworks has led to the rise in critical engagement exhibition spaces.
Speaking to the Guardian on 18th June 2014, the curator Kieran Long said: “The V&A isn’t a campaigning body, but its task is to collect for posterity and display critical moments in the history of manufacturing and design.” The V& A’s decode exhibition contained an interactive experience of screen-based work for artists and a similar accompanying narrative of creativity and self-expression to the digital revolution exhibitions.Global pressures, social and political pressures and high demand from audiences to engage has led to the rise in demand for gallery spaces to hold public deliberations.
Victoria & Albert Decode Exhibition 2009 /2010
A differnt form of digital art exhibition : The Victoria & Albert Museum commissioned the artist Karsten Schmidt aka Toxi to design a code for the Decode exhibition. Karsten did that including downloadable application with built in Processing for the artists.
A number of artists used the code and submitted their work to the exhibition. The actual application helped many artists who had to use the code via mouse, keyboard and a graphical user interface. The application lets the artists manipulate most parameters in realtime to create a variety of different looks. Artists were encouraged to take the time to experiment to create their own (new) version. Artists were asked to send their recoded work to the Victoria & Albert museum for inclusion in the digital gallery.
Each work used in this way was fully credited with the name of its artist. These exhibitions are fun but the reality is that there’s at least a hundred NSA/GCHQ analysts doing the same thing with much more bandwidth and some very sophisticated tools.
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Transmedial -Exhibition Germany
Datafication , Data collection and processing is now at the core of all elements shaping our society especially in the developed countries. W As our society is moving towards digital culture we as the users of digital technology act as sensors for this process .
Capturing data, locating patterns, predicting and optimising behaviours involves us subconsciously. The current ideology of the emerging algorithmic society suggests that data is constantly correlated and controlled in order to ensure security and prosperity.
Hence, the optimisation of the self directly connects to the optimisation of networked systems. At the same time datafication of physical and online interactions enables new modes of identity. The 2015 Transmediale, CAPTURE ALL, exhibition which finished in January 2015 tests the same logic annually. Artists respond to asymmetric, self-commodification, algorithmic pressures and expose the hidden monstrosity of the datafying world. They do this by re-channelling and re-purposing the self as a constantly evolving apparatus. This exhibition highlights the uncanny tensions between the software and its user. The artists who visit the Transmediale exhibition provoke and critically speculate intellectual discussions on the future of algorithmic cultures
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This video shows software engineears and artists exchanging ideas at Transmediale event.
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About SIGGRAPH 2015 Past event
For all those requesting more information on the much awaited event. Here it is! Thousands are expected to turn up to the exhibition. Booking in advance may be the preferable option. (This event was in the past)
The annual SIGGRAPH conference is a five-day interdisciplinary educational experience in the latest computer graphics and interactive techniques, including a three-day commercial exhibition that attracts hundreds of exhibitors from around the world. The conference also hosts the international SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, showcasing works from the world’s most innovative and accomplished digital film and video creators. Juried and curated content includes outstanding achievements in time-based art, scientific visualization, visual effects, real-time graphics, and narrative shorts. SIGGRAPH 2015 will take place from 9-13 August 2015 in Los Angeles Convention Centre, California
New Orleans Airport, The LA Convention Centre and Hotel Embassy Suite are marked on the map.
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Games On Exhibition
The question that I am trying to answer is why should museums and galleries house gaming machines and consoles?
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I interviewed gaming enthusiasts to find out about the growing popularity of the Games On Exhibitions.
The images are from CCBB – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil when the exhibition was there in 2012.
Photograph Courtesy : The Barbican Centre. Please obtain permission from the source prior to downloading the images. I have taken the permission to publish these image for sharing information and knowledge.
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GAMES ON Exhibition : The Barbican is the pioneer in touring gaming exhibitions, since 2003, the collection travel the world. At most stops, locally relevant installments are added, exploring regional development cultures. Since 2010, the Barbican has been running a refreshed version – Game On exhibitions show emerging technologies.
From a broader cultural context video games can offer creators access to a greater range of inspiration. S2.0 – which features brand new elements looking into 3D stereoscopic visuals, virtual reality and such exhibitions are reminders for gamers and creators that the medium didn’t evolve in a bubble.
Video games provide strong links to the creative fields for example media art and post-internet art. Video games are designed by creative teams and they work in hybrid enviornments. The backgrounds of the designers of video games span from a range of subjects such as fine art, design, animation and mathematics, programming etc… it is a broad skill set and it attracts interllectuals and experts in their respective fields.Thousands of visitors men and woman visit gaming exhibitions
This year, the Games On exhibition gets a face lift with an updated version and is held at Newcastle’s Life Science Centre from May 23 to November 1, 2015.
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The Relevance of Ambience in Digital Art Galleries : This short video is about audience and ambience in galleries and it also briefly explains online engagement with digital art.
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The Barbican Centre and Google collaboration – Exhibitions (Global Art Ventures)
A major collaboration in the field of technological Art in United Kingdom is London’s Barbican with Google. DevArt was launched by google to inspire the new generation of developers. Their unique method of replacing the canvas with computers and codes has pushed the boundaries and possibilities for artists and software engineers to work together. By using technology and innovation it has proved to be beneficial in highlighting that codes can have a creative art form. These artists are technically experienced in the fields of artificial intelligence and create interactive digital art exhibitions for the audiences.
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Barbican Centre
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The Barbican Centre : The exhibitions manager at the Barbican wes touring and I did not get an interview. However, at the time of writing this blog, the Digital Revolution Exhibition show was taking place at Tekniska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden until the 30th August 2015. Most of the artists were also travelling. For more information see Barbican website. The next stop will be in Athens. Nevertheless, special thanks to Veronica Dominiak for sending information to complete the blog and Matthew G Lloyd (photographer) whose permission was obtained to use the pictures for the public.
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This musical slide show is about the Digital Revolution Exhibition in 2014 and the images used are taken by Matthew G Lloyd.
Living Data : Digital Art at Watermans Art Centre :
The Digital News 