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Think Technology Has No Place In Art? Think Again.

Capital One

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Our technology is evolving, with its uses and abilities multiplying in a swirl of gadgets and apps. Now, your toaster’s smarter than your dog and babies are trying to swipe left in printed magazines. Constant change is the new normal.

The visual arts though—for all their stylistic exploration—have spent most of history confined to a limited set of forms: painting, sculpture, textiles, etc. In the past century or so, we’ve seen the addition of photography, video and computer art. But the last decade alone birthed an explosion in new forms and media that are both shaping, and being shaped by, the art world.

The five sci-fi worthy works below are integrating technology and art in a way you might never have seen before:

Hereafter Institute

Since Marcel DuChamp slapped a signature on a urinal, conceptual art has continued to push boundaries and redefine art as we know it. Gabriel Barcia-Colombo’s Hereafter Institute goes a step further, using art to redefine death as we know it.

Unlike browser histories, social media timelines and other aspects of our digital lives can be a comforting reminder of those we’ve lost. The Hereafter Institute is a fictional funeral home (website and all) that explores the possibilities for incorporating those digital lives into personalized memorials for the departed.

The most impressive thing about this work is its grandness of scale, the full extent of which was on display for two days at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. With actors playing the roles of institute employees, visitors could explore all they had to offer in the form of digital video memorial lockets, visiting three dimensional reconstructions of the deceased and even had the opportunity to receive a full body scan before virtually attending their own funeral.

Probably the most unique offering is Monument I: a sleek and futuristic reimagining of the traditional tombstone, complete with vinyl record player and digital display. Barcia-Colombo encoded messages from a real Facebook timeline left behind by someone who passed on—and was donated by their family—into audio tones that play a unique musical translation from the record as the original messages fill the display.

While prying our attention from our online presence in daily life is an increasingly futile struggle, it seems a wasted opportunity to do so in death. How much of our lives are hidden from the analog world? Probably more and more with each passing day. Can you truly know someone without accounting for such a defining piece of their (social) life?

Concrete Storm

If a sentient computer composed a surrealist sculpture, it might resemble Studio Drift’s Concrete Storm. The first ever augmented/mixed reality art piece for the Microsoft HoloLens, it’s dizzying to behold even in their 2D video at the bottom of the link.

Somewhere between magicians and engineers, Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta (Studio Drift’s founders) have a distinct ability to challenge our sense of reality and defy the laws of nature. If so much of art is the way it makes the observer feel, few other works can approach this unique coupling of vertigo and an irrational fear of looking away.

Augmented reality promises an inevitable shift in how and where we experience art. Sure, nobody’s walking around with a bulky HoloLens on their morning commute…but what happens when the tech fits into a typical pair of glasses or a contact lens? What won’t be a canvas?

CloudPainter

Pindar Van Arman has taught robots to paint. But more importantly, he’s taught them creativity. Through his project CloudPainter, Pindar applies deep learning and artificial intelligence to allow a robot to make independent aesthetic decisions that result in completely unique and unpredictable creations.

The software draws from various source material that inspires content and style, but channels it into entirely new “imagined” works. Though the source material is dictated by a human, the end result is so far removed that it’s more like the human is suggesting a general topic for the work. The robot decides what to paint, how to paint it and when the painting is complete.

It’s exciting to imagine where artificial intelligence will take us. This style of creativity is different from our own, but equally powerful. Right now, limitations and imperfection (if you can call them that) play an active role in determining the end work. But what could happen when those limitations are removed?

Petting Zoo

Some art is genuinely unsettling. Trust me, I slept with an oil painting of a circus clown over my bed as a child. But what if your art was afraid of you?

Now, it can be!

MinimaformsPetting Zoo blurs the boundary between art and animal husbandry—and that’s a gaping chasm of a boundary. Composed of groupings of worm-like robotic creatures dangling from above, the exhibit literally greets its visitors.

It makes use of visual, auditory and haptic feedback that explores and tests our own senses for interpersonal communication. A complex blend of software, cameras and other equipment allow the “pets” to sense and react to people and one another. Move too quickly and they may frighten, recoiling and changing color.

But these aren’t just pre-programmed and redundant interactions. The pets learn and adapt, showing different responses to groups and individuals, different motions, etc. In a way, the people interacting with the pets dictate their personalities. And like the pets’ behavior, visitors’ experiences evolve over time.

Landscape with a Ruin

Evan Roth’s Landscapes (2014–ongoing) channels American poet William Carlos Williams’ words, in that it’s “not what you say that matters, but the manner in which you say it.” Any other medium would mute the message.

The culmination of a Hessean quest to visit and catalog the sites where undersea Internet cables greet dry land, this body of work seeks meaning and direction in our evolving relationship with the Internet. No small task, the effort has stretched across 47 locations and five continents, each recorded in infrared video.

Though surrounded by equally poignant works, the centerpiece of Roth’s exhibit presents the videos captured from all 47 locations, each on its own screen—click on the photos in the link to see it in all its glory. The winning touch? Each of the videos is hosted on a server in its country of origin, then streamed to the screen through the very cable it documents. This is uncharted territory.

Try capturing that in an oil painting.

What’s Next?

Unlike other art forms and media, technology is in constant flux. It practically ensures that the art it comprises will follow suit. So, when we ask, “What comes next?” I don’t expect we’ll be waiting long to find out.


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