NEAT: New Experiments in Art and Technology
October 15, 2015 through January 17, 2016
Complete Wall Text
Many artists feel that their job is to record what it is like to be alive now and paying close
attention. In order to do so they prefer to use the latest technology, which reflects the
environment that shapes our lives. The Bay Area has been rich with artists using the art of
digital programming since the 1970s. The nine local artists in this exhibition include
representatives from three generations; roughly speaking, there are three in their twenties,
three in their forties, and three in their sixties. We asked them to make new work, or new
versions of existing sculpture or installation art, for this project.
The title of the exhibition suggests a reexamination of the seminal, famous projects from the
1960s, titled Experiments in Art and Technology, or E.A.T. These events, mostly performances,
paired each of several artists with engineers from Bell Labs; all the participants were working
in New York City. Today, half a century later, an essential factor has changed: individual
artists today are trained in the roles of both engineer and artist. E.A.T. is noted for the
public emergence of art heavily incorporating new technology, but it also marked the end of
a time when artists depended on corporations for the expertise to carry out their projects.
E.A.T. was soon followed by a project at Yale University, titled Pulsa, in which tech-based
artists declared their independence. A second change, we suggest, is that the center of gravity
of such work shifted to the Bay Area in the 1970s.
NEAT is highly appropriate for The Contemporary Jewish Museum because mainstream
Judaism has a tradition of embracing innovation in the sciences; there is nothing in Jewish
tradition that would reject new information and understanding about the world as
unacceptable to doctrine. This is due to the principle that the religion and its ideas evolve
over time given new realities. Jews are expected to “repair the earth,” to help complete
creation, and the newest and best tools should be used to accomplish that task.
The historic nature of the Bay Area commitment to freedom of inquiry has created our lively
art scene. The founder of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly, once stated that he is most interested
in technology where “things don’t quite work.” This love of what we might call the “almost
formed,” and the imperfect pursuit of breakthroughs that can change culture, are inherent to
the embrace of innovation. This love and this pursuit characterize not only NEAT’s artists,
but the essence of Jewish tradition, and the Bay Area’s particular defining attribute.
Renny Pritikin, Chief Curator
Paul DeMarinis
Tympanic Alley, 2015
Loudspeakers, noise, electronics
Courtesy of the artist
Paul DeMarinis has been making digital sound sculptures and other works since the midseventies. In that era, many artists were strongly influenced by the thinking of John Cage,
who was interested in the act of hearing itself, and chose not to make distinctions among
noise, ambient sound, and music. For this exhibition the artist offers a sound installation that
refers back to the classic do-it-yourself days of the 1980s when low budgets and modest
means were the rule. Simple aluminum pie plates in a gridded and suspended plane generate
staccato percussive sounds when struck by dancing metal shards reacting to interruptions in
the flow of an electronic signal. The echoes of the sound, and the clicks of the breaking
current in the associated loudspeakers, in addition to the otoacoustic (internal ear-originated)
emissions, create a complex soundscape for the attentive listener: falling rain, or faint and
faraway marches.
Jim Campbell
Broken Movie, 2015
Video installation: custom electronics, LEDs
Courtesy of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Jim Campbell explores the limits of visual perception by widely separating individual pixels
of moving images. The brain, we find, will synthesize these bits of light-information into
coherent narrative, even when given the most minimal amounts of information. Campbell
has made a series of curtain-like works that use individual pixels to project found home
movies onto white walls. For NEAT he presents a new work that offers an innovation: the
mural-scale pixelized projection is augmented by a number of strategically placed pixels that
extend the moving image to adjoining walls. This creates a sense of almost three
dimensional, inclusive space to the piece, as the visual ellipsis—the gap between pixels—is
pushed even further apart and onto perpendicular walls.
Alan Rath
Soon, 2015
Aluminum, steel, fiberglass, motors, custom electronics, feather
Courtesy of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Alan Rath
Four Eyes, 2006
Wood, acrylic, PVC, polypropylene, custom electronics, LCDs
Courtesy of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Alan Rath
Voyeur III, 2007
Fiberglass, aluminum, G-10, custom electronics, LCDs
Courtesy of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Alan Rath
Forever, 2012
Aluminum, polyethylene, fiberglass, software, motor, feathers
Courtesy of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Alan Rath was among the very first artists to store images using ROM technology rather
than videotape; he also has had a growing and long-term interest in robotics and kinetic
sculpture. Rath prioritizes the perhaps old-fashioned notion of the artist’s hand—he
fabricates almost all his parts himself. He also argues that the content of his work is the form
it takes, how he solves design problems in the most elegant way he can. That is, the objects
he makes should be understood as a whole, that the images presented are not the sole
intended end of his work; rather, in some ways they are the least important part of his
practice. He also parodies the utopian claims made for technological innovation and artificial
intelligence fantasies while at the same time his kinetic robotic figures demonstrate the
enormous potential of digitized machine behavior as sculpture.
Camille Utterback
Entangled, 2015
Custom software, computer, video cameras, projectors, scrims, lighting
Courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Camille Utterback makes interactive video projects that track the movement of viewers
and transforms that information into abstract and evolving painting-like projections.
Utterback adds that, “there are usually other behaviors happening that are less obvious, but
that contribute to the complexity of the image that evolves—i.e. behaviors that connect
different moments of time, behaviors that respond to ‘stillness,’ different movements that
erase as well as add marks.” For NEAT, she works for the first time with evanescent, multilayered scrims as projection material. The work is an attempt by the artist to have viewers
not only interacting with the computer program, but also facing each other on the other side
of the scrim, jointly creating a two-sided, transparent image.
Scott Snibbe & Lukas Girling
REWORK_ (Philip Glass Remixed), 2012
Custom software, music, iPad
Courtesy of the artist and Dunvagen Music Publishers
Credits: Scott Snibbe (Director), Ahna Girshick (Producer), Lukas Girling (Glass Machine
Designer & Audio), Graham McDermott (Engineer), David Wicks (Software Artist), Noah
Bennett Cunningham (Audio), Rebecca Fenton, Lukas Girling, Ahna Girshick, Pete Hawkes,
Lukas Girling, Sean Monroe, Graham Plumb, David Wicks, Pirate Vereker (Art &
Design), Trevor Gureckis, Alex Weston, Fritz Myers (Consultants from Philip Glass Studio)
Scott Snibbe & Lukas Girling
REWORK_ (Glass Machine), 2012
Custom software, music, iPad
Courtesy of the artist and Dunvagen Music Publishers
Credits: Scott Snibbe (Director), Ahna Girshick (Producer), Lukas Girling (Glass Machine
Designer & Audio), Graham McDermott (Engineer), David Wicks (Software Artist), Noah
Bennett Cunningham (Audio), Rebecca Fenton, Lukas Girling, Ahna Girshick, Pete Hawkes,
Lukas Girling, Sean Monroe, Graham Plumb, David Wicks, Pirate Vereker (Art &
Design), Trevor Gureckis, Alex Weston, Fritz Myers (Consultants from Philip Glass Studio)
Scott Snibbe
Bubble Harp, 1997 / 2010 (for iPad)
Custom software, iPad
Courtesy of the artist
Scott Snibbe was one of the first artists to move into the burgeoning field of
applications for phones and tablets around 2005. His piece for NEAT, REWORK_, (with
the key collaborator being Lukas Girling), allows the viewer to interact with remixes of
Philip Glass’ music using iPad responsive abstract animation to both visualize music and to
create original musical compositions in Glass’ early style. The goal for many artists in the
field has been to have a democratic relationship between makers and those engaged, where
information is shared and responses become equal parts of the work, and monetary
exchange is minimized or eliminated; Snibbe’s work reflects those values.
Paolo Salvagione
Rope Fountain, 2015
Nylon rope, 3D printed housings, motors, control electronics, code
Courtesy of the artist
Paolo Salvagione uses his engineering background to create complex sensory experiences
for his viewers: vertigo and emotional transport by being suspended from a second floor
window or overwhelming memory by inhaling deeply from concentrated essential aromas.
For NEAT he has created a machine using electronics and 3D printing to create eerily alive
line drawings in space. Ropes attached to the gizmo flail in space, ecstatically free yet also
restrained by one foot, often forming symmetrical patterns like water ballet.
Mary Franck
Gilded and Unreal, 2015
Custom software, steel, aluminum, thermal plastic, LED screens
Courtesy of the artist
Mary Franck has made a wall-mounted projection surface onto which abstract, layered
video evolves over time, using her own algorithmic design. Merging surface and image, it
suggests an unidentified but organic, living colony into which visitors may observe.
Micah Elizabeth Scott
Eclipse, 2015
Acrylic, glass, 3D printed plastics, handmade electronics, software
Courtesy of the artist
Micah Elizabeth Scott presents an installation for a contained space in which a suspended
globe emits powerful color. Scott works with algorithms that create environments
combining linked light and sound effects.
Gabriel Dunne & Vishal K. Dar
NAAG XY, 2015
Multi-Channel Video Projections, EPS Foam, Plaster
Courtesy of the artists
Gabriel Dunne and Vishal K. Dar have created an installation that uses multiple projectors
to overlay an evolving, black and white, algorithmically-derived abstraction onto a large wallmounted sculptural form, whose organic shape enhances the illusion of a writhing, living
being.