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Our hunch on a not-to-be-missed show
By libby
March 14, 2008 · 3 Comments
We are shameless about letting you know about our contributer Annette Monnier‘s latest curatorial adventure. That’s because we believe it’s going to be great. Her show Given Enough Eyeballs includes art that hacks open source computer software for art’s sake–for example Super Mario Brothers visuals put to very different purposes.
The exhibit opens tonight at the Esther Klein Gallery, 5-8.
The big pre-opening news is this from Annette: “We just got some press from Rhizome, the New Museum’s New Media web-site: http://rhizome.org/.”
So maybe we’ll see you there tonight!!
Given Enough Eyeballs
March 14th-April 26th
The Esther M. Klein Art Gallery
The Science Center: 3600 Market Street
Tags: annette monnier, esther klein gallery
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Readers Comments (3)
This was a fun show. Ramsey Arnaoot’s piece was mesmerizing though perhaps a bit vertigo inducing. While Yoshi Sodeoka’s remix of the Beatle’s and Stones was a tweak not only of the original art, but of the copyright process that protects it.
Unfortunately, I expect more from art that Kendall Brun’s and the other “participatory” pieces provide (as fun as they were).
Often art is in the position of stretching expectations; but these pieces merely explain. And in explaining open technology and free culture vectors I’m afraid they stuck to remedial language.
Though I thoroughly enjoyed the show, I was hoping that the works would push harder to either expand on what is possible with participation, hacking, and openness; or that they might force us to consider something deeper about the free culture movement that they encourage.
The show struck me as a kind of survey of what’s out there not a throwing down of the gauntlet to break new ground. I believe that the work was not commissioned although some of it was newly made for the show. The fact that many art viewers will not have heard of open source says to me that showing them what it means is important. Given a limited budget a small gallery in West Philly seems to have rounded up a lot of great stuff to open the discussion about open source. I, too, loved Ramsey Arnaoot’s piece with its cascading pixels and leaping frogs and whales. It reminded me of Takeshi Murata’s Pink Dot video at Screening Gallery a few months back. Arnaoot’s choice of eco-theme and the suggestion of a falling apart world strikes a deep chord. Joe DiGiuseppe’s viewer-activated light piece is a great steal from Dance Dance Revolution — going low tech was a good choice.
You’ve got to start a discussion somewhere and for viewers outside the inside loop of the art world I think the show does a great job of engaging. And for this insider, I found several pieces that spoke to me–that’s a pretty good percentage.
Hey, anon., thanks for your thoughtful comment. I want to add my own plug for the low-tech Joe di Giusseppi piece because it was hilarious and fun, and for me that counts for something. Also, the inspiration, Dance Dance Revolution, was spawned by computers and the 15-minutes of cheesy fame culture in which we love. So to have the spotlights pointed inward turns them of an anti-mirror ball, making fun of celebrity and the Studio 54 see-to-be-seen culture. Also a plug for Ramsey, whose piece was Jeremy Blake does Animal Planet.
Could you please let us know who you are, either via email or on here? We appreciate how thoughtful you were, but we still worry that it’s too easy to be critical without showing a name.