Greg J. Smith

Website
http://serialconsign.com
Profile
A writer and editor based in Toronto, Greg is interested in media art and its broader cultural implications. Beyond contributing to CAN, he is the Editor-in-Chief of HOLO and serves on the Board of Directors at InterAccess.
Posts by Greg J. Smith:

Fusing Theory and Practice at MUTEK’s Twentieth

HOLO curates a series of critical conversations and hands-on exercises as part of the 20th Edition of MUTEK Monreal, Aug 20-25.

05/08/2019 in CAN Events&Features

BIAN’s 4th Edition – Contemplating (Post-Digital) Corporeality

A review, photos, and selection of highlights from the abundant offerings of the 4th edition of the International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN) in Montreal.

03/08/2018 in Events&Review

Artificial Imagination – Opening ‘the Black Box’ of Inscrutable AI Through Dialogue

Artificial Imagination was a symposium organized by Ottawa’s Artengine this past winter that invited a group of artists to discuss the state of AI in the arts and culture. CAN was on hand to take in the proceedings, and given the emergence of documentation, we share videos and a brief report.

01/05/2018 in Theory

Secret Rhythms – Artificiel’s Three Pieces with Titles

“Three Pieces with Titles” is the latest audiovisual performance by Montreal’s artificiel. In it Alexandre Burton and Julien Roy manipulate an eclectic collection of objects within the field of view of a computer vision system to generate real-time video and abstract sonic collage.

24/11/2017 in openFrameworks

Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design – An Excavation of Digital Form

“Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design” is an exhibition that excavates the foundation of computer-aided design and manufacturing and weaves together several ‘origin stories’ for contemporary consideration. The show recently closed after a seven-week run at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and CAN was fortunate enough to get a guided tour with curator Daniel Cardoso Llach as it was winding down.

21/11/2017 in Review

Sight + Sound 2017 – A Spectrum of Non-Compliant Futures

The 2017 edition of Eastern Bloc’s Sight + Sound festival put ‘capital I’ innovation in its cross-hairs and pulled the trigger. We journeyed to Montreal to its flagship exhibition and assess its spectrum of ‘non-compliant futures.’

01/11/2017 in Review

Music of the Spheres – A Conversation with Dan Tapper

Dan Tapper is a British artist based in Toronto that combines his interest in code and celestial form and his recent research project “Turbulent Forms” visualizes and sonifies various cosmic phenomena. To mark the recent exhibition of this work (and related collaborations with several composers) we present this extended conversation with the artist about cosmology and data aesthetics.

13/10/2017 in Processing&Sound

Anatomy of a Screen – Jeremy Rotsztain’s House of Shadow Silence

House of Shadow Silence is a VR experience by Portland-based software artist Jeremy Rotzstain. In it, the artist recreates Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler’s 1929 movie theatre the Film Guild Cinema and uses it to ‘build a world’ of light, geometry, and motion.

04/10/2017 in openFrameworks

Dread Bass – AUDINT’s alternate timelines reverberate with fear and death

AUDINT is a European artist collective working across animation, installation, and publishing. Drawing on excerpts from an extended conversation with the group, we unpack their vision of the dystopian future-present and the nether zones that can be conjured through sound and vibration.

16/08/2017 in Environment&Sound&Theory

What Algorithms Want – Reflecting on (Human) Agency in an Age of Automation

‘How much should we let algorithms shape our lives?’ is the question at the heart of Ed Finn’s recent book “What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing”. Scanning Silicon Valley, computer science, and the cultural sphere alike it offers a smart and accessible reading of our current moment.

10/08/2017 in Review

Inside the Artist’s Headset – Sterling Crispin’s Cyber Paint

Created by California-based artist Sterling Crispin, Cyber Paint is a freshly-released VR painting app for Google’s Daydream platform. Not so much a painting simulator, its creator describes it as a “laboratory for algorithmic mark-making.”

24/07/2017 in Unity

Disobedient Electronics: Protest – the revolution will run on a microcontroller

A follow-up to the influential 2012 booklet series “Critical Making,” “Disobedient Electronics: Protest” is a new zine by Vancouver-based theorist and educator Garnet Hertz that uses dissent as a lens to survey electronics-based projects and practices.

13/07/2017 in Review