Friday January 18, 7:30pm
Lisa Gwilliam & Ray Sweeten:
Screening & Artist Talk
Artists in person
Still from “Vexed” (2017) by Lisa Gwilliam & Ray Sweeten (DataSpaceTime) – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope
Microscope is very pleased to present an artist talk and screening of moving image works by Lisa Gwilliam & Ray Sweeten (DataSpaceTime) in connection with their 4th solo exhibition at the gallery “\n”, currently on view through February 10th.
The focus of the evening is on new and recent moving images works employing original coding and software by the artists, which is applied to current technologies as a way to consider the culture of informatics and the thresholds of image recognition across various mediums including photographic works and computer “drawings” (also featured in the exhibition).
The approximately 45-minute screening program includes new 3D animated videos such as “Erased” (2017, 9 min. 40 sec.) that are video captures of a single navigation through a 3D environment created for WebGL browsers using a custom application that infinitely renders and reshapes 3D objects and abstract imagery into new compositions. In “Erased”, highly reflective surfaces of disembodied hands, grids, shapes and other animations in the work — in metallic hues of black, silver, copper, and violet — suggest the deficiencies encountered and reinventions needed in virtual renditions of elements of the physical world. A programmed glitch creates a sense of destruction and regeneration akin to analog video feedback.
In “Vexed” (2017, 5 min. 25 sec.) a work made using the same technology, a morphing rocky terrain seems sucked into a vortex, evoking “weather patterns, satellite imagery and blizzard-like textures”. The visuals were originally inspired by and made for the official music video for the song of the same title by the electronic trio Moebius Story Leidecker (Dieter Moebius, Tim Story, Jon Leidecker) released in 2017.
Among several excerpts from infinitely generating moving image pieces by the artists that will be shown are “Corridors” (2018), a labyrinth of rising and falling cubes across which plays original video footage of public 24-news ticker tape feeds, and the 2-channel “Shifting Ultraviolet” (2015) in which video material shot and performed by the artists in an astronaut suit is deconstructed into tens of thousands of rotating animated GIFs offset in time and arranged in grids.
A conversation and Q&A with the artists follows the screening.
Free admission
Lisa Gwilliam & Ray Sweeten (DataSpaceTime) made their debut as the collaborative duo in 2011 with the solo exhibit “the optimal value for y” at Microscope Gallery, followed by “Thresholds” (2013), “Echelons” (2016) and “\n” (2019). Their work has also been featured in institutional shows in the US and abroad including the solo exhibition “Cryptophasia” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) as part of Next Wave Festival and in the group shows: “Processed: To Each Their Own Image”, Center Pompidou, Paris, France; “Day In Day Out” at GEH8 Kunstraum und Ateliers, Dresden, Germany; “Altarations”, Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida; and “Dialogics”, Rowan University Art Gallery, New Jersey among others. Their 6-channel video “Breakout” was commissioned by The Parrish Museum for New York City Center where it was on view for a year. Gwilliam & Sweeten live and work in Brooklyn, New York.