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by Jacqueline Houton |
March 23, 2009
If
you’re anything like us, some days may see you spending half your
waking hours staring at one screen or another — typing your way toward
a case of carpal tunnel at work, texting your updated ETA while
traveling the T, and twittering way too much information to friends
before collapsing in front of the TiVo at night. So it’s nice to know
that all that screen time can inspire more than just eyestrain. In Syntax,
an exhibit staged as part of the 2009 Boston Cyberarts Festival, eight
artists interrogate the language of digital information, creating works
that are right at home in an age in which pixels and digital data have
replaced daubs of paint and celluloid still frames as the major modes
of visual representation. Mark Stock, an aerospace engineer and artist
who lives in Newton, writes a new program for each of his works —
oftentimes using code so complex it can take his computer a week to
process. The results translate hard-to-fathom thought experiments into
vivid visuals like “Inside the Bomb,” a work that transports the viewer
to the interior of a bomb in the milliseconds after it detonates.
Meggan Gould of Maine likewise puts her mad programming skills to work
in “Go Ogle,” a series that relies on Google image searches to chart
changes in the popular imagination. The UMass Dartmouth grad creates
her amorphous yet evocative images by averaging the top results of
search terms like “mugshot” pixel by pixel over a period of several
months. And Somerville’s Matthew Swarts blends 21st century techniques
with those of the 20th, scanning old family photographs and his own
hand drawings into Photoshop to create new veiled images that, like
memories themselves, obscure as much as they reveal. The works of these
and other tech-savvy artists will be on view from March 27 through May
10 at the Photographic Resource Center (832 Comm Ave, Boston,
617.975.0600), the nonprofit gallery and education center at Boston
University. Dazzle both your right and left brain by checking out the
show’s opening reception on April 2 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. For more
information, visit www.prcboston.org/syntax.htm.
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