In perceiving established cultural and historical rituals through the lens of contemporary technology, Choy Ka Fai opens up a liminal space in which dance transcends colonial resistance, power and fantasy.
Category: Review
Up and down the Metaverse – Rhizomatiks on synchronicity and multilevel experiences
In today’s mercurial, complex, and ambiguous world, our bodies oscillate between the virtual and the real more than ever. The world-famous collective Rhizomatiks is testing the web, presenting performances and experimental online-based systems, and approaching these situations from a variety of angles.
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.
Otherly Space/Knowledge – Questions of knowledge in the age of data
Review of the exhibition last month at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea – a collection of 12 works questioning the essential meaning and significance of the data world.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
Queer Game Studies – an Alternative Lens for Reading Videogames
“Queer Games Studies” is a recent collection of thematic essays published by the University of Minnesota Press that schematizes LGBTQ approachs to thinking about – and making – videogames.
Searching for the Smart City’s blind spots – resistance, respite, and “New Romance”
Showcasing three film collaborations by Liam Young and Tim Maughan, “New Romance: Love Stories from the Machine City” is an exhibition currently showing at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery (Columbia GSAPP) about finding respite and cultivating resistance in the smart city.
Myths, Rumours, Legends – Machine Art in the Twentieth Century
Machine Art in the Twentieth Century is a recent MIT Press-published book by Andreas Broeckmann exploring ‘machinic’ art-making. CAN weighs in with a review of this survey of moments, movements, and key figures spanning futurism to the present day.
Evidentiary Realism – Revealing the aesthetics of investigation
“Evidentiary Realism” is an exhibition that delves into the aesthetics of sites of inaccessibility, incarceration, and intrigue. CAN’s NYC correspondent Dylan Schenker ponders the Paolo Cirio-curated show, which emerges from the collaboration of NOME and the Fridman Gallery.
Turning Data Around – OCR Journal #002
An output of the Office for Creative Research, OCR Journal #002 documents the process and philosophy of the Brooklyn-based studio specializing in complex data-informed projects.
Building Towards a Point of Always Building – Digital Design Theory
CAN reviews “Digital Design Theory,” a recent Princeton Architectural Press text compiling writing from over five decades of thought on computation and design.
Tense Relations: human vs. machine art and aesthetics at BIAN
CAN contributor Dylan Schenker considers AUTOMATA (“art made by machines for machines”) and the uneasy relation between human and machine aesthetics at the third edition of Montreal’s BIAN digital art biennale.
‘New Realities’ at Lima’s Espacio Fundación Telefónica
Taking place at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Lima between 17 March – 19 June, New Realities is a touring exhibition curated and produced by Alpha-ville which explores how the phenomenal pace of technological advancement is changing the way we perceive ourselves and our world.
Considering Technology and the State of the Art(s) at Sónar+D
CAN’s report on Sónar+D, the Sónar Festival’s sidebar congress on ‘creativity, technology & business’ that took place June 18th-20th in Barcelona.
CLOUDS – Code, Creativity, and Immersion
An interactive (and immersive) documentary on code and creativity, Jonathan Minard and James George’s CLOUDS is an ambitious project that is several years in the making. CAN donned an Oculus Rift DK2, explored its landscape and has weighed-in with a review.
Short Cuts – CentrePasquArt Maps 50 Years of Invention and Influence in Art and Design
CentrePasquArt’s super-group show Short Cuts invites viewers to trace ideas, influences, and positions across five decades of work by merely taking a few steps.
Flashing Forward at ELEKTRA 16
The sixteenth edition of Montréal’s ELEKTRA festival took place from May 13th-17th and delivered a range of audiovisual performances and installations addressing the notion of ‘post-audio’ or perception beyond sound—CAN was on hand to have our retinas singed and eardrums buzzed by the ‘POST-AUDIO’-themed programming.