#grace grothaus

[conceptokkc]

Focus Artist Grace Grothaus

Re(View) in Situ: Tulsa

Statement: In our lifetimes a shift from raw life to life virtually interpreted has taken place. The city, being a physical manifestation of our collective aspirations and our digital tools, is beginning to reflect this shift. With the ever increasing amount of time that we spend on our computers and smartphones (often even while walking, driving or doing other things) we are beginning to live in two planes, the real and the virtual, simultaneously. Have you ever wondered if our virtual lives are beginning to shape our physical reality? Bio: Grace Grothaus’ artworks exist in the intersection between painting, digital media, and screen culture. Grothaus is a past Art 365 artist and National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts awardee. Her work has been featured in This Land Press, yahoo.com, and has been exhibited from coast to coast and abroad. www.gracegrothaus.com Additional Links: Art Focus Oklahoma article - Concept/OK: Focus, An Oklahoma and Kansas City Exchange OVAC Blog Post - Augmented Landscapes: Grace Grothaus View the full Concept/OK catalog online.

[w10w]

The digital art world, interactive design, and new forms of media have created a world in which the arts are influenced by and influence technology.

Rethinking artistic and natural creations via computer parts has become a popular mode of expression. The ASUS Motherboard Mona Lisa makes use of the technological on a physical level, reinterpreting Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting as composed from motherboards and computer chips.

Artist Grace Grothaus' beautiful sculptures form magnificent landscapes out of old circuit boards, utilizing the original components to represent geographical terrain and tiny architectural structures.

By recreating the natural landscape out of computer parts, Grothaus examines the way nature can reference technology and technology can imitate nature.

Theo Kamecke also uses electronic circuitry in his work, but his practice focuses on the link between the designs in technology to the cultures of ancient civilizations.

Though using modern, technological materials, Kamecke's work could be mistaken for an ancient sculptural piece or familiar crafts.

Check out more exciting works on Grace Grouthaus' and Theo Kamecke's websites!

Learn more about the the influence of technology on art in our interview with Matt Chalker on the w10w blog and visit Matt's work "The Aura of the Synthetic" at West 10th Window, on view through June 14!

To stay up to date on West 10th Window and other Time Equities Art-in-Buildings Projects, subscribe to the blog, visit our facebook, and connect with us on twitter!

[conceptokkc]

In selecting sites in Kansas City for the Re(View) in Situ project, I looked for places where in the artifacts of the city, namely the architecture, you see evidence of the pre & post digital age side by side. (ie - both buildings that were built prior to the advent of digital tools, and after it) There is a stark contrast between the brick buildings with hand carved cornices, each brick carefully laid by hand, and the digitally precise, geometric glass & steel towers alongside them. I am fascinated with how the world is being sculpted by digital tools. As Marshall McLuhan has written, “we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” We can only create so far as the parameters of the tools we use. To that end there are architects who can look at a building on the street and pretty accurately identify which version of Autodesk software was used to build it. This isn’t that surprising, given that digital tools were less sophisticated, say, in the late 80’s than they are today. Flash forward to present day and you will see that we sculpt our cities & our world far differently than ever before in history. I rather feel that through the development of the internet, we translated the physical world into a digital copy/ or map (rather like the map Jorge Luis Borges writes about in “On Exactitude in Science”). Now that digital copy is being translated back into the physical world and as a consequence, It is very clear that the division between the physical and digital is blurring. As James Brindle puts it, “a line has been crossed, technology/software/code is in and of the world and there is no getting out of it.” (Brindle is a progenitor of the New Aesthetic movement)

[conceptokkc]

Have you ever wondered if your digital tools shape your physical reality?

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“First we shape our tools and then our tools shape us”

- Marshall McLuhan

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Reading the metadata linked to each augmented reality painting in the Re(View) in Situ app

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& using the Re(View) in Situ app with

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spotting 1 of the 5 site markers