Creative Systems: Memory, Media, Bio Art
The artists featured for the plenary lectures of Source to Code, Paul Vanouse and Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, capitalize on early historical combinations of art and cybernetics to create provocative and whimsical responses to the cultures of media habitat, body, and science.Paul Vanouse spoofs on the celebrations of genomics and biotechnologies to wonder about the roles of race and gender in universal scientific approaches. Himself hailing from Oswego, New York, Vanouse frequently acts the part of bemused scientist in public performances. Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s multimedia artworks examine the genres and conventions of filmmaking, memory and language. They are well known for constructing subjective databases of narrative material and making fragmentary miniature film sets with lights, video cameras, and moving sculptural elements to create live cinematic events. Jennifer McCoy’s Cornell liberal arts training (BA, Film, 1990) exemplifies the Goldsen’s aim to provide liberal arts research opportunities to further the intellectual and creative dimensions of artistic practice. The fruits of such research-oriented approaches to the arts are championed by conceptual artists and international competitions focused on the bio arts.
Young Sun Lim, The Room of the Host II, guide from exhibit at STUX Gallery. New York City, 2005. Private collection.
Hanging from the ceiling are two hundred glowing phosphorescent jars, each with a different silicon creature. Motion sensors stop the creatures from moving and humming if the spectator gets too close.
Telefonica, VIDA 6.0: Arte y Vida Artificial. Fundación Telefónica, DVD. Spain, 2002.
Goldsen holds the collection of the annual VIDA competition, Art and Artificial Life. Gift of the Fundación Telefónica.
Shilpa Gupta, Your Kidney Supermarket, Storefront Installation. India, 2002. Gift of the artist.
The installation gloomily portrays a future global organ trading system in which moral concerns have no place. The uncontrolled consumer greed of the first world, often concealed by a utopia of benevolent globalization, is exposed as “take-away” kidneys are waiting for their customers, and luxurious offers are available online for medical tourism. Visitors are informed about organ trade routes, reminiscent of colonial times, as well as the life history of donors, who sell their organs for financial reasons.
Justine Cooper, Havidol: When More is Not Enough (3 items). Daneyal Mahmood Gallery. New York, 2007. Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships Collection.
This fictional pharmaceutical treats the fictional condition, Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder. HAVIDOL® was launched onto the market with its web site www.havidol.com in early 2007. In the first week of the exhibition the web site received more than 250,000 hits.
Paul Vanouse, Latent Figure Protocol exhibition catalog (Buffalo, New York: CEPA Gallery, 2008) and DVD (2007). Gift of the artist.
Latent Figure Protocol takes the form of a media installation that uses DNA samples to create emergent representational images. Employing a reactive gel and electrical current, LFP produces images that relate directly to the DNA samples used. A copyright symbol is derived from the DNA of an industrially-produced organism (a plasmid called “pET-11a”), illuminating ethical questions around the changing status of organic life and the ownership of living organisms.
Paul Vanouse, Latent Figure Protocol, floor plan from Renew Media / Rockefeller proposal, 2007. Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships Collection.
Paul Vanouse, Millie Chen, Andrew Johnson, Warren Quigley, and students of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, PED.Chongquing, DVD including project documentation. China, 2006. Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships Collection.
In PED.Chongqing collective teams ride custom audio bicycle systems--6 wheeled carts, built from salvaged bicycle parts, and powering hacked megaphones. As the viewers pedal they hear the lecture, and when they stop the lecture ceases. These human-driven machines broadcast audio via karaoke-inspired lectures, spreading information and entertainment in a new/ancient society.
Critical Art Ensemble, Paul Vanouse, and Faith Wilding, Cult of the New Eve, installation photo, 1999-2000, from Vanouse Renew Media / Rockefeller proposal, 2007. Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships Collection.
This project examines the appropriation of Christian promissory rhetoric by industry and scientific specialists in order to persuade the public of the utopian nature of new biotechnology.
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Animals, catalog for exhibit at Gallery Guy Bärtschi, Geneva. Switzerland, 2006. Private collection.
Collaborators since 1990, the McCoys’ installations reflect on the role that automata and machines play in both the production and experience of their work that combines miniature movie sets, surveillance cameras, and switching systems, allowing viewers to observe a film and its production in its entirety.
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Robot Films, catalogue for exhibit at FACT Liverpool. England, 2003. Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships Collection.
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Tiny, Funny, Big and Sad (London: British Film Institute, 2007). Private collection.
The McCoys’ miniature movies and sets highlight our culture's fascination with the storytelling process, revealing the mechanisms and artifice behind the magic of cinema.
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Small Appliances, CD-ROM. USA, 1997. Private collection.
An interactive CD-ROM, the work departs from themes of domesticity and electricity as a way of focusing on women's experiences with technology, presenting these experiences using both narrative and abstract video material. Including over 70 minutes of video and sound, the narrative consists of 10 short stories told by 10 different women.