CONNECTED

Do you have to be able to walk around a contemporary art exhibition for it to be critically engaged and thought provoking?

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Artist 13: Kate Freeborough, ‘A Series Of Films’ 2015.

To highlight the final week of CONNECTED we have commissioned artist Kate Freeborough to create five films, for the last five days of the CONNECTED online exhibition programme.

By creating a series of films instructing the audience I have enabled the merging of sounds and images in the film with those in the viewer’s own space. The instructions include eliminating one or more of these senses to increase awareness of what is remaining. This highlights the unique experience each viewer has with the piece whilst also enhancing the acknowledgement of the everyday elements of the space the individual is in.

These films challenge the idea that a gallery is a defined space with rigid walls that an audience enters to view the artwork. The films question where the “gallery” exists? Is it always a physical space? Is it where the art is? Is it where the audience is? Is it all of these places? Or is it the space between and/or around the art and the audience?

Artist: Kate Freeborough, A Series Of Films, 2015.

Images: Kate Freeborough.

VIDEO.

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Video 5: Kate Freeborough, Walking, 2015.

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Video 4: Kate Freeborough, Phone, 2015. 

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Video 3: Kate Freeborough, Cut N Paste, 2015.

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Video 2: Kate Freeborough, Handwriting, 2015.

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Video 1: Kate Freeborough, Typewriter, 2015. 

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Artist 12: Charlotte Warne Thomas, 2015.

Charlotte Warne Thomas' work explores the concept of and conflicts surrounding value and worth, specifically the creation of luxury, as it functions to add speculative value (financial and in terms of kudos) to products and designed environments.

1: Nothing comes easy, 2015.

2: Stand with the world at your feet i, 2015.

3: Stand with the world at your feet ii, 2015.

4: Stand with the world at your feet iii, 2015.

5: Stand with the world at your feet iv, 2015.

6: Stand with the world at your feet v, 2015.

Artist: Charlotte Warne Thomas, 2015.

Images: Charlotte Warne Thomas.

JPEG.

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Artist 11: Trevor H. Smith, ‘Selected Images’ 2015.

Playlist: Sad Songs.

Walking alone on an empty beach at dusk you come across the greatest witticism you’ve ever heard, etched into the dirt on the back of a van.

Take a photograph.

A fresh covering of snow blankets a moonlit valley and on Tumblr a user reblogs images of blurred cityscapes through rain-spattered windows.

Nothing else.

There’s an Instagram account of pictures taken on self-timer by cameras on tripods in front of hotel room mirrors.

The other selfie.

Through a cracked screen, functional, you respond to a Facebook friend request from your secret imaginary childhood friend.

Artist: Trevor H. Smith, Selected Images, 2015.

Images: Trevor H, Smith.

1: I sometimes wish, 2011.

2: An enigma, 2012. 

3: Labour of Love, 2015.

4: A new book designed to look like an old book placed within a stack of old books in the hope that their aroma will be imparted upon it, 2014.

5: Her idea of heaven, 2012.

Mixed Media. 

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Artist 10: Alice Ford, ‘Compressed’ 2015.

The traditional white cube gallery space is familiar to all artists, but presents limitations; physical space limits, health and safety concerns, costs to the artist for resources to display the work with. Presenting work purely online removes these limits but brings new complications to the curator and artist. The exhibition will take place only on a flat screen of different sizes, and all work will be presented as images, representations of the original.

Different technologies have varying levels of compression which replace the original, lossless physical image, with one built out of imperfections. These compression artefacts become apparent when the image is viewed from a computer as you can view the work at sizes that would be difficult to work with and display in a gallery, and the image itself is easier to manipulate. Instead of altering the gallery by creating dark spaces and positioning lights, the artist can control lighting and colour balances per image without altering the presentation and positioning of other work.

‘Compressed’ aims to explore the imperfections in an artwork exhibited online through sharpened and upscaled images, each captured using different methods of compression.

Artist: Alice Ford, Compressed, 2015.

Images: Alice Ford.

1: Light Still from compressed video capture of lightning.


2: DVD Still from high quality video capture of discs reflecting light.


3: Tape High quality photo of painted masking tape on a gallery wall.


4: Branch Compressed photo of trees in winter.


5: Upscale Still from lightly compressed video of heavily compressed elements.

STILLS.

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Artist 9: Darren Washington, ‘Collection Of Images’ 2015.

1: Factory Process.

A long line of processes and mass production, the abandoned place is now a visual stimulation to the photographer, but was never back then to the worker.

2: Inspection.

Reminiscent to the air raid wardens inspecting the damage as depicted in images of the past. “We looked on” watching our buildings been destroyed to be replaced by the baron waste lands of the future.

3: They Always Find A Way.

An abandoned factory is always going to appeal to curiosity; boundaries furthermore the need to overcome and explore our curiosity.

4: Natural Decomposition.

Death on display. 

5: What Would Happen If.

Looking into the future we see the digital age has killed culture, we have no exhibitions or events, and we owe this to our self indulgence in preferring the faceless to view our work with no real interaction. 

Artist: Darren Washington, Collection Of Images, 2015.

Images: Darren Washington.

JPEG.

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Artist 8: Chia-An Yang, ‘The Places Shown in the Homogeneous Space’ 2015.

I have been making works about specific geographical places. My media includes painting, installation, and photography. I paint the places that are intimate to me and wonder about city life and people's pursuit for "authentic" nature. However, the five works are extracted from separate series, this decision is to exploit the feature of the on-line platform- the capability to present different works as equal.

These works are usually exhibited within the context of their relationship with the exhibiting space. Putting them online presents them as a form of data within the virtual space. The work no longer depends on their physical position or surroundings to be interpreted. For the installation works, the existential presence of the objects has been erased when the concrete dissolves into pixels. When viewing, audiences are aware of the works being documented and speculates what they have missed or cannot see, in this specific way of display. 

Presenting works by image is not a reduction to the works, but leaves more space for imagination and provides a democratic platform for various art forms.

Artist: Chia-An Yang, The Places Shown in the Homogeneous Space, 2015.

Images: Chia-An Yang.

1: The Globe Theatre, JPEG, 2014.

2: Living Space #2, Shi-Da Night Market, Oil On Canvas, 2013.

3: We Will All Sink Together (A), Toilet Paper, Cloth, Wooden Board, Plastic Container, 2015. 

4: We Will All Sink Together (B), Toilet Paper, Cloth, Wooden Board, Plastic Container, 2015.

5: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For #5, JPEG, Overpainted by Computer Brush, Digital Output, 2013. 

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Artist 7: Rob Wright, ‘Light Web’ 2015.

In this work my aim was to address our relationship with what one could call the ‘light web’, in the form of the Kabbalistic tree of life. 

The main impetus behind this was based on the idea that our electronic devices could be seen as acting as shaman-like intermediaries between our analog physical world and the binary- digital luminescent ether. Our gadgets’ role is to receive and translate data from spheres of existence incomprehensible to everyday human cognition, they allow us, as did the village wise-man, to transcend the physical by the unpacking and reconstruction of information that would otherwise hitherto remain inaccessible.

The Kabbalah, also known as the Jewish Tree of Life, in its common constructed hermetic visual form can be viewed as a simple anthropologically friendly map that depicts the spiritual realm; with our physical world being based at the bottom traversing up to the peak that is God, or self-actualization, in its purist form. The use of the Kabbalah not only foregrounds the mystical role the internet now plays in our lives but also serves to show both how our internet networks are equally liberating as they can be constrictive.

This work in summary then primarily wishes to question the cyber-utopian position of the web as a borderless, free and neutral space as well as to highlight the political implications of believing that our devices are simply unbiased translators of data.

Artist: Rob Wright, Light Web, 2015.

Images: Rob Wright. 

1: Metcalfe's Kabbahlah. 

2: The Medium Is The [Error] Message 1.

3: The Medium Is The [Error] Message 3.

4: The Medium Is The [Error] Message 2.

5: Tree Of Social Clouds.

JPEG.