Patrick Vaillancourt
Tom Jennings
Nate Harrison
Sean Dockray
Peter Cho
Kelli Cain
Brian Crabtree
Tom Leeser
A group exhibition of 7 emerging artists from the media-saturated terrain of Southern California. Part technological history, part emergent media, and part theoretical response to these media and their innovators, the show investigates the current debates of communications literacy and the extent to which we are constituted by our technologies.
Curated by Tom Leeser
Director, Center for integrated Media, California Institute of the Arts
Gigantic ArtSpace [GAS] presents Object Lessons, a group exhibition of seven
emerging artists from the media-saturated terrain of Southern California.
Part technological history, part emergent media, and part theoretical
response to these media and their innovators, Object Lessons investigates
the current debates of communications literacy and the extent to which we
are constituted by our technologies.
Contributors:
Patrick Vaillancourt: Celebrating a Rediscovery of the Intentionally Erased
takes six number-one pop hits from the past fifty years and transforms them
into a series of comprehensive drones, to kill the hook, in order to erase
the effects of pop music on the mind. By reducing each song to an almost
painful experience, a poetic confrontation with the base elements is made
possible.
Tom Jennings: Story Teller is a self-contained system for telling stories,
which are stored as rows of tiny holes in long spools of paper tape. The
stories are on a wide range of subjects, but they are all about text,
mediation, representation and deconstruction.
Nate Harrison: Can I Get An Amen? is an audio installation that unfolds a
critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drums beat in the history
of recorded music, the Amen Break. The work attempts to bring into scrutiny
the techno-utopian notion that 'information wants to be free.' it questions
its effectiveness as a democratizing agent.
Sean Dockray: Cabinet is based on a research project in which the recorded
and archived the applauses he has received as a performer and in doing so
has documented the temporary moments when we leave our isolated bodies and
become part of a collective body, with its own temperament and desires. The
cabinet itself is a homemade device that has been designed around its
contents, much like a library's card catalog furniture is based on the
dimensions of a single index card.
Peter Cho: Takeluma is an invented writing system for representing speech
sounds and the visceral responses they can evoke. The project explores the
ways that speech sounds can give rise to a kinesthetic response. The
Takeluma project explores the complex relationships between speech, meaning,
and writing and comprises several animated, sculptural, and print works.
Kelli Cain and Brian Crabtree: Almost Certified (Grade-A noise for
non-discerning consumers) is a distributed network of sixteen precarious
egg-tapping robots. Each individually amplified unit features a select
unconventional egg. Calculated sequences emerge, conducted by beautifully
rendered software on a resurrected mainframe (a sweet Mac LC3).
The Center for Integrated Media is an interdisciplinary, peer-to-peer
experiential learning and studio environment for CalArts graduate students
and visiting artists wanting to explore and critique computer programming,
interactive systems, the Internet, digital video and digital audio
technologies as part of their artwork. The Center is designed for artists
whose work has reached an advanced degree of development and who possess the
desire to integrate multiple forms of media into new modes of expression,
while opening up critical dialogues between artists, scientists and writers
on issues related to new forms of media.
An electronic catalogue, co-produced by CalArts and Gigantic ArtSpace, is
forthcoming.
Reception: Wednesday, March 29, 2006, from 6-9pm.
Gigantic ArtSpace [GAS]
59 Franklin Street New York, NY 10013
Tuesday Saturday, 11am 7pm, Mondays by Appointment