Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, Beijing
Game On / Re-Newing Media Art
A touring initiative
Curated by Chris Clarke
Artists: Peggy Ahwesh (US), Paul B. Davis (US), Michael Bell-Smith (US), Cao Fei (CN), Faith Denham (IE), JODI (NL), Oliver Laric (AT), Conor McGarrigle (IE), Takeshi Murata (US)
126 Gallery: Thursday March 8th, 6pm
Game On / Re-Newing Media Art is a touring screening programme of artist’s film and video works that utilise the imagery and media of desktop interfaces, video games and online software. Curated by Chris Clarke (Curator of Education and Collections, Lewis Glucksman Gallery). Game On explores the ways in which contemporary artists appropriate and manipulate extant online materials and applications, often in order to challenge the rhetoric of user-interactivity and to highlight the aesthetics of the computer screen. While new media artists have often explored computer technologies in their practices, the featured artists in Game On appropriate existing software; an approach shared with hackers and ‘hacktivists’ who often re-programme mass-produced video games and applications as a strategy of subversion. While hacking has generally concerned itself with forms of sabotage through computer viruses and website vandalism, the artists here use widely-available software to create films that emphasise the aesthetic qualities of the virtual landscape.
Artists: Peggy Ahwesh (US), Paul B. Davis (US), Michael Bell-Smith (US), Cao Fei (CN), Faith Denham (IE), JODI (NL), Oliver Laric (AT), Conor McGarrigle (IE), Takeshi Murata (US)
A 42-page publication featuring information on the artists, works and an essay situating Game On within the wider history of media art and ‘hacktivism’ has been produced to accompany the programme. For further information, please contact: exhibitions@glucksman.org