Slipped Gears: Eyebeam Centre, Bennington College Art Gallery, Vermount USA
The show offers challenging responses to a moment of tectonic cultural transition, when technology increasingly resides in and around us. The artists, many of whom have shown internationally, include Nick Hornby, Joon Oluchi Lee, Kristin Lucas, Rosa Menkman, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Katie Torn, Matias Viegener, and the collaborative duo of Birch Cooper and Brenna Murphy called MSHR (biographies below). It is curated by Roddy Schrock, director of residencies and programs at Eyebeam, a leading art and technology center in Brooklyn, New York.
Slipped Gears, a multimedia exhibition featuring the work of nine artists, opens in Bennington's Usdan Gallery on Tuesday, September 16, at 6:30 pm.
The show offers challenging responses to a moment of tectonic cultural transition, when technology increasingly resides in and around us. The artists, many of whom have shown internationally, include Nick Hornby, Joon Oluchi Lee, Kristin Lucas, Rosa Menkman, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Katie Torn, Matias Viegener, and the collaborative duo of Birch Cooper and Brenna Murphy called MSHR (biographies below). It is curated by Roddy Schrock, director of residencies and programs at Eyebeam, a leading art and technology center in Brooklyn, New York.
“This show asks tough questions about the emotional impact of accepting an ‘Internet-of-everything’ world wherein every gesture is analyzed by algorithms beyond our control,” says Schrock. “These artists are at the forefront of exploring, poetically, our relationship to emerging machinic systems.”
Schrock continues, “In a moment when systems and frameworks of machinic perfection are overlaid onto the messy and dense tangles of people, feelings, and objects that make up life, we can nearly feel the Internet in our bones.” In this show, the artists examine the thorny social and political realities of this moment: “We have given tacit acceptance to constant data-analysis, by one’s peers and by corporate interests, of nearly all physical activities; we have accepted a surveillance state at a scale once thought impossible; we assume massive debt while giving up on minimal home-ownership; we have gained the pleasures of instantaneous access with the price of a constant forgetfulness,” says Schrock.
“This show represents the leading edge of current artistic practice and continues Bennington’s history of providing fertile ground for creatives to present innovative and challenging new work,” said faculty member Robert Ransick, who organized the show. Slipped Gears ties to courses he is teaching this term, including Future Studio, Web as Artistic Platform, and Social Practices in Art. The exhibition is available for viewing Tuesdays - Saturdays, from 1-5 pm, thru Thursday, October 16. It is free and open to the public.
