Cyberart Exhibit Features Digital Projections and iPad Art

Visitors to The Boston Cybertarts Gallery this spring can experience “Poetic Codings,” a new-media art exhibition that juxtaposes wall-based flatscreen displays, projections, and interactive installations with iPad apps on mobile devices. The exhibition runs April 27 to June 2, 2013, with an opening  reception on Friday, April 26.

PoeticCodingsWallArt3Curated by new-media artist Jody Zellen, “Poetic Codings” first appeared at the Fellows of Contemporary Art gallery in Los Angeles.

The exhibition includes computer projections by John Carpenter, Jeremy Rotsztain, and Casey Reas and 20 original, interactive iPad artworks by eight artists (John Baldessari, Jason Lewis, Lia, Erik Loyer, Jeremy Rotsztain, Rafaël Rozendaal, Scott Snibbe, and Jody Zellen).

More information about the artists and their work can be found in the 68-page “Poetic Codings” catalog that can be ordered as print-on-demand book from Lulu.com or downloaded as a PDF from Jody Zellen’s website. Scanning the QR codes published next to the art will take you to a webpage where you can download the app the artist used.

In the catalog’s introduction, Zellen says interacting with a digital work in public isn’t the same experience as sitting back and navigating a work on a mobile device: “Apps are contained, and fill a small screen. Installations are often immersive environments. While the graphic elements and animations can be similar in both formats, how the viewer interacts with the artwork is very different.”

Computer Projections

“Dandelion Clock” by John Carpenter. In this interactive work, the seeds of a digitally created dandelion float away with the viewer’s proximity to the wall.

Jeremy Rotsztain’s Action Painting is a video projection transferred onto a large canvas in the style of Jackson Pollock. It is composed using data from action movies as material.

Casey Reas, one of the inventors of the Processing computer language for artists, presents Signal to Noise (Software 1). Using television signals as a raw material, this piece distorts contemporary information into new abstract data structures.

Art on Mobile Devices

Since the introduction of the iPhone, new-media artists have been using low-cost or free apps to produce a wealth of interactive art for both iOS and Android systems.

“These are some of the most inventive and interactive art works available today,” observes George Fifield of Boston Cyberarts Gallery. “Even though several of these apps have become wildly popular, it is clear that neither the art world nor the computer industry knows what to make of these art apps.”

For example, instead of using drawing and painting apps that appear in the “art” category of the iTunes store, the “Poetic Codings” artists created works with interactive digital-art apps that can be found in the Entertainment or Lifestyle categories on iTunes.

PoeticCodingsApps

Fifield hopes the art world will begin to take notice of what’s possible with some of these new apps. He believes the 20 apps used in “Poetic Codings” signal the beginning of a revolution that will bring interactive digital art to millions through the mobile devices. The apps also connect artists directly to an audience through an app store.

About The Cyberarts Gallery

Located in the Green Street station on the MBTA’s Orange line in Jamaica Plain, the Boston Cyberarts Gallery is an independent art organization that focuses on new and experimental “cyberart.” Cyberart encompasses any artistic endeavor in which computer technology is used to expand artistic possibilities.

The computer’s unique capabilities are integral elements of the creative process in the same way that paint, photographic film, musical instruments, and other materials have always been used to express an artist’s vision. The Boston Cyberarts Gallery brings together members of the new media community, reaches out to the general public, and supports emerging and established artists alike.

LINKS

Boston Cyberarts

Poetic Codings

Exhibition Essay and Catalog: Poetic Codings