Viewing the artwork of an artist you aren’t familiar with is like having a conversation with a stranger. Occasionally you’ll connect immediately and the interaction will be revelatory. Sometimes all you can hope for is an emotional response. But mostly it’s inane small talk about the obvious, leaving you feeling nothing at all except maybe slight annoyance. Without knowing the context of an artwork and motivation of the artist, without any idea of who it is you’re conversing with, all you can base your appreciation on are superficial values like technical execution and style, and whatever other personal baggage you’re bringing to the table.
That’s why I find it such a luxury any time I have the opportunity to hear artists speak about their work and process. This past Saturday I had that opportunity when I attended
Seven on Seven, organized by
Rhizome at the New Museum. Here’s the official description:
Presented by AOL, Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new—be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine—over the course of a single day
It was an inspiring day, with a good mix of highly conceptual ideas and product centered experiments. In all the presentations it was revealing to hear the artists and technologists talk about the process of meeting each other (some for the first time) and trying to collaborate on a project. The sharing and evolution of ideas was evident in the many different influences and interests that the teams talked about.
One recurrent theme seemed to be the ephemeral quality of digital and the idea of permanence. In Camille Utterback and Erica Sadun’s presentation they spoke about trying to digitally recreate the marks that time and history leave on more tangible objects, and how those marks can add to the experience, especially in regards to user interfaces (the handle of a sword that forms to the wielder’s hand over time, for example). They also touched upon the increasing amount of data that is constantly accruing, and how in the real world time often has a subtractive property, wearing away at the finish of objects, while in digital it’s often additive, with more and more information being stored in memory. These ideas were evident in their final product – an iPad app that utilized the camera to “burn in” images on the screen over time, with the user able to rotate, scale and move the image, creating a sort of visual history.
Two artists/technologists that I was excited to see were Ricardo Cabello,
mr. doob, and Chris Poole (founder of 4chan). Their end product was driven by their mutual interest in social interaction on the Internet, and in particular the organic discovery of shared experiences. They presented a site that creates a layer on top of the Internet, allowing users to leave comments, images and videos over existing websites. It is at once a commentary on the ephemeral nature of comments as they fade over time and the content beneath them changes, as well a tool that people can use to interact with each other and create a dialogue.
Another team that commented on ephemera was made up of Emily Roysdon and Kellan Elliot McCrea. Their idea stemmed from the notion of bringing events, ideas and movements back from the obscurity of time in order to emphasize them. Sort of like bumping a thread in a forum, but with historic events.
Other interesting concepts that were talked about during the day included the relationships between humans and responsive architecture, the lack of commitment/permanence in digital life (the ability to undo and change your desktop as much as you want), the appropriation of content in the form of supercuts (supercut.org was created by the team up of Michael Bell-Smith and Andy Baio, interaction with strangers on the street, and the complex emotions that can be read from facial expressions of people doing something as simple as listing important people in their lives (the end project of Zach Lieberman and Bre Pettis included video of this projected onto miniature 3D fabricated scans of the subjects’ faces).
With the compressed timeline of 24 hours, I was impressed by the teams that had more fleshed out products to present, but the most interesting thing was hearing the thought process that led to the end result. Getting an in-depth look behind the scenes of an artist’s process is always inspiring, and Seven on Seven was no exception.
on October 19, 2011 at 10:22 AM
