City Hall's Gallery One exhibition of UNM digital art faculty, intriguing if confusing
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Gallery One at sa国际传媒官网网页入口鈥檚 City Hall is hosting its first exhibition of digital art, and let鈥檚 hope it鈥檚 the first of many.
鈥淪ignal and Trace鈥 presents the work of ten digital artists, who are all University of New Mexico faculty members or emeriti.
To understand the curatorial framework behind 鈥淪ignal and Trace,鈥 it鈥檚 necessary to understand multiple definitions of both words, so bear with me for just a moment.
In the world of electronics and printed circuit boards, traces are the physical pathways along which electrical signals travel. So, if we think of electrical signals as cars, the traces are the highways.
In art theory, 鈥渋ndexical traces鈥 are the marks or imprints that connect an artwork directly to its subject or its maker. Handprints in prehistoric cave art are a good example of indexical traces, since they are the direct imprint of the hand of the artist. The philosopher Jacques Derrida defined the trace as the mark of the absence of a presence. So, in the case of prehistoric handprints, they鈥檙e the physical marks of people who died long ago. The traces make their physical absence palpable.
Signals, by contrast, are symbolic representations 鈥 the word 鈥渉and,鈥 for instance, as opposed to an actual handprint.
All the works in 鈥淪ignal and Trace鈥 use digital media, and they all have a narrative component. So, the definitions of 鈥渟ignal鈥 and 鈥渢race鈥 from electronics and linguistic theory are both applicable here.
It鈥檚 an interesting, if somewhat overwrought, curatorial framework, and it works better for some pieces than others.
One of the best examples of distortion and loss in the show is Mary Tsiongas鈥 and Jim Roeber鈥檚 room of sound-augmented archival images of silk moths and silk factories, taken from the Tbilisi State Silk Factory鈥檚 archive from Tbilisi, Georgia. Although I couldn鈥檛 quite make out what crackly, hissing sounds I was hearing in the audio, it brought to mind the high, screechy sounds of silkworms being boiled alive in giant vats, which I first heard at a silk factory in China when I was 14. At the time, everyone said it was just air escaping from the cocoons, but I didn鈥檛 believe them. Production and decay are bound together in silk processing, and in the material itself. The caterpillars unwittingly weave their own death shrouds, and silk, made by moths, can also be eaten by moths. So, the creepy audio and grainy photographs become decaying traces of processes already tied to cycles of decay.
Valery Jung Estabrook鈥檚 鈥淩ETURN,鈥 a video projection on layers of translucent fabric, uses doubling and fading to communicate loss. I first saw this piece at Bingo Art Gallery, where it occupied its own darkened room, but I felt it was just as effective here in a gallery with more ambient light. If anything, the slightly faded look gives the birds and wrinkled human hands in the video a more poignant quality, suggestive of fading memories.
Chanee Choi鈥檚 鈥淩emembrance鈥 is a work of biofeedback-gamified performance art and a meditation on the fragility of consciousness through the lens of both Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and AI. Unfortunately, we don鈥檛 get to see the actual performance, just documentation of it, which is projected in a brightly lit hallway outside the gallery. Whereas Estabrook鈥檚 video is still legible, despite the ambient light, Choi鈥檚 is much less so. In fact, I wouldn鈥檛 have known what I was seeing if I didn鈥檛 have the description. I鈥檓 just glad to be aware of Choi鈥檚 work now, which is sophisticated and deeply felt, and I look forward to seeing it someday in a better light 鈥 literally.
Most other artists in 鈥淪ignal and Trace鈥 are not focused on loss and decay, and there are no examples of glitch art or heavy digital distortion here. By and large, the artists seem to want to communicate with relative transparency, rather than calling attention to what鈥檚 gotten lost or warped in the electronic mediation.
For instance, Ramona Emerson鈥檚 鈥淗idden Talents鈥 is a very good documentary portrait of the Navajo artist James Woolenshirt King, but it could have just as easily been shot on film. It was one of my favorite things in the show, but it鈥檚 a documentary short, not video art.
Jacob Kader鈥檚 鈥淕ordian Knot鈥 is a video installation that revolves around a physical prop 鈥 a rope as thick as a Burmese python, tied in a simple knot. The installation consists of the actual knotted rope in front of a video in which the knot is shown to represent a timeline of global wars. As in the ancient Greek legend, the character in the video cannot untie the 鈥渒not鈥 of intractable conflict. This is a good idea for an art piece, but as a former Boy Scout who spent years perfecting my bowlines and sheet bends, I can tell that Kader is not a knot guy. Compared to Maren Hassinger鈥檚 knot installations from the early 1970s or Sheila Pepe鈥檚 crocheted nylon paracord pieces, Kader鈥檚 easy-to-untie knot undercuts the seriousness of his message. The piece would have been more effective if each war were represented by its own knot, which would collectively create a giant knot ball, perhaps with the character in the video slowly becoming trapped inside. 鈥淕ordian Knot鈥 has nothing to say about digital media, either. Like Emerson鈥檚 piece, it could have just as easily been shot on film without altering the meaning.
Stewart Skylar Copeland鈥檚 鈥淥bservation Arena鈥 bills itself as a video game, but it isn鈥檛. It鈥檚 really a 鈥渢alking head鈥 video of the artist and his fiancee discussing her choice to use an AI portrait as her LinkedIn profile pic. The Xbox controller only allows viewers to rotate their view and zoom in and out, but nothing else 鈥 unless there鈥檚 a secret cheat code I missed. If the relative lack of interactivity is meant to mirror people鈥檚 lack of agency in online corporate spaces, a more complex gameplay with countless dead ends may have been more interesting. As it is, the Xbox conceit feels like a poorly thought-out gimmick, which detracts from Copeland鈥檚 simple but intriguing video.
Marie Alarc贸n鈥檚 鈥淐oded鈥 displays a digital avatar of the artist鈥檚 child on a spinning LED hologram fan. Artists like Jennifer West and Rachel Rossin have done more interesting things with hologram fans, so if you want a better example of Alarc贸n鈥檚 artistic vision, ask to see 鈥渢he vault.鈥 A gallery employee will lead you to a secret, room-sized metal vault, which the artist has transformed into a fictional revolutionary鈥檚 secret lair, complete with mysterious black flags, a barbed-wire-enwreathed peacock chair and a digital avatar of the artist as a pirate-zombie called Papi Leon. This installation, titled 鈥淎merican Archipelago鈥 is technically not part of 鈥淪ignal and Trace,鈥 though it fits well thematically and is a definite must-see.
My favorite piece in the show was R. Lee Montgomery鈥檚 installation of large-format Polaroids taken through a thermal imaging filter. Sometimes the medium is the message, and that鈥檚 the case here, where Polaroid film, associated with 1970s mug shots, meets the thermal imaging of today鈥檚 airport body scans or sniper goggles. Human warmth is the one thing thermal imaging devices are built to capture, but the one thing they can never possess. So, the ghostly photographs are imprinted with the residue of human warmth as viewed through a cold, cybernetic Terminator eye. Unsettling, yet strangely beautiful.
As a former director of a university art gallery (many years ago), I know what it鈥檚 like to curate faculty shows where you have to shoehorn artworks into a prefab theme, and I suspect that鈥檚 what may have happened here. The multiple meanings of 鈥渟ignal鈥 and 鈥渢race鈥 do provide interesting frameworks for interpreting some of the art in the show, but for others, it just creates confusion.
Regardless, there鈥檚 strong work here, and it鈥檚 a great way for sa国际传媒官网网页入口 residents to familiarize themselves with some of the University of New Mexico鈥檚 faculty who work in digital media. Most of them are stellar. So, go see 鈥淪ignal and Trace鈥 before it closes on Aug. 15.
City Hall's Gallery One exhibition of UNM digital art faculty, intriguing if confusing
