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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 ||
New perspectives blossom in Wood Street cyberart exhibit
By
Kurt Shaw With so much
digitally based art, or "cyberart" as it's called, being shown at
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Wood Street Galleries, Downtown, over the
past couple of years, it's no surprise that the galleries' current
exhibition, "Allure Electronica," follows suit. But what's
different about this show of digital art by six internationally recognized
artists is that all of them are women. "Women
use technology in different ways," says Murray Horne, curator of the
Wood Street Galleries. "This group show is all woman to point out that
women can use technology in a very, very different way than what men do, in
the sense that each of these pieces has a narrative component. It's more
about the content of the work than the actual medium, which tends to be a
prevalent preoccupation for men." Hence the
title, "Allure Electronica," which is a play on Ars Electronica,
the world's premiere festival of media art held each year in Linz, Austria,
which draws a mostly male, techie sort of crowd.
To say the works in this exhibition have a female
predication is an understatement. Case in point is Andrea Ackerman's
"Rose Breathing." A 3-D computer animation of a digitally created
pink rose, it slowly blooms and closes to the rhythmic sounds of the artist
breathing. "Every woman that comes in here knows this piece," Horne
remarks about this visceral work, "and upon experiencing it, it's easy
to understand why -- it's as if this classic symbol of female sensuality has
come alive." Quite the
opposite, Kiki Seror explores sensuality through text; specifically through
transcripts of online encounters with the strangers she has met in
hardcore-sex chat rooms. Although two
of her works in this exhibition are abstract video animations, one
incorporating text and the other digital photographs, one is simply comprised
of text that reads, "Your death waits here between my thighs, my cold
fingers will close your eyes," which has been manipulated in 3-D
software, output on Duratrans and mounted on a wall-hung light box. It's
disturbing yet decadent all at once. Not all of the
works in the exhibition are sexual in nature. Claudia Hart has created an
avatar named "E" that functions as sort of a cyber Barbie Doll that
she has dressed in various couture and placed in urban settings. They are
displayed as large-scale digital prints mounted on Plexiglas. Most notably
among them: "E as Teenybopper, 3x in Warhol Paper Dresses," which
features E in a dress made of Campbell's soup labels. Horne made it
specifically for this exhibition. Nancy Dwyer
addresses relationship issues in three thought-provoking pieces, two of which
are digital animations and one titled "Selfish Idiot" that is a
wall installation based on a pixilated digital model. Entirely sculptural, it
is simply made of colored balls mounted on a wall. At a distance, they look
like LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). Squint at it, and you'll be able to read
the words "Selfish Idiot." But move closer, and all will be lost in
the beauty of colors and simple forms. Lillian Ball
turns all notions of domesticity upside down with her works, "Floating
Worlds" and "Boiling Point." The former comprises three glass
casts of kitchen sinks mounted on one wall onto which the artist has
projected video of water going down the drains. The latter is similar in
concept, but features glass casts of the bottoms of teakettles, which the
artist has arranged on the floor and projected video onto them from above of
water boiling at the bottom of a teakettle. Aside from
pieces' remarkable aesthetic qualities, what is equally remarkable is the
artist's use of glass. She has used the material in a way that goes far
beyond what most working in glass have done. Local glass artists should take
note of these compelling works. The exhibition
culminates with an interactive video work by Julia Heyward titled
"Miracles in Reverse." The piece, says Horne, represents five
years' worth of work for the artist. Basically a
DVD filled with myriad interconnected images, it is navigated with a mouse
that sits on a table next to an easy chair that is flanked by speakers. Move
the cursor around any part of the projected image, and the piece advances to
another related image. But the images move so fast while scrolling through,
and the audio along with it, that it reads like a flipbook or a movie. Perhaps more
like a horror movie, because most of the images are just plain frightening.
For example, in one sequence a shrouded man rips his heart out and presents
it. In another, a little girl screams as she is chased by a bogeyman in a
forest. Horne says,
"You can spend 45 minutes with this and actually never come across the
same image again. You just go deeper and deeper into the work." It's like an
inescapable nightmare. But regardless
of the narrative content in that piece, as well all the rest in this
exhibition, it's clear that these six artists are exploring the potentials of
technology in a far more cunning way than most. They are using digital technology
as a means to an end. Not the other way around. Kurt Shaw
can be reached at kshaw@tribweb.com.
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