Ghosts in the Machine
18 July - 30 September 2012
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| "Ghosts in the Machine”, 2012
Exhibition view New Museum
Photo: Benoit Pailley |
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GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE
18 July - 30 September 2012
"Ghosts in the Machine” surveys the constantly shifting relationship between humans, machines, and art.
Occupying the Museum’s three main galleries, the exhibition examines
artists’ embrace of and fascination with technology, as well as their
prescient awareness of the ways in which technology can transform
subjective experiences.
International in scope, the exhibition spans more than fifty years and
incorporates works by contemporary artists. The works assembled trace
the complex historical passage from the mechanical to the optical to the
virtual, looking at the ways in which humans have projected
anthropomorphic behaviors onto machines that have become progressively
more human. In place of a traditional, chronological approach, "Ghosts
in the Machine” is conceived as an encyclopedic cabinet of wonders:
bringing together an array of artworks and non-art objects to create an
unsystematic archive of man’s attempt to reconcile the organic and the
mechanical.
The installation at the New Museum includes artists, writers, and
visionaries whose works have explored the fears and aspirations
generated by the technology of their time. From Jacob Mohr’s influencing
machines to Emery Blagdon’s healing constructions, the exhibition
brings together improvised technologies charged with magical powers.
Historical works by Hans Haacke, Robert Breer, Otto Piene, and Gianni
Colombo, amongst others, are displayed alongside reconstructions of lost
works and realizations of dystopian mechanical devices invented by
figures like Franz Kafka. "Ghosts in the Machine” also takes its cue
from a number of exhibitions designed by artists that incorporated
modern technology to reimagine the role of art in contemporary
societies, including Richard Hamilton’s "Man, Machine and Motion”
(1955). Exploring the integration of art and science, "Ghosts in the
Machine” also tries to identify an art historical lineage of works
preoccupied with the way we imagine and experience the future,
delineating an archeology of visionary dreams that have never become a
reality.
Many of the artists in the show take a scientific approach to
investigating the realm of the invisible, dismantling the mechanics of
vision in order to conceive new possibilities for seeing. Central to the
exhibition is a re-examination of Op art and perceptual abstraction,
with a particular focus on the work of painters Bridget Riley, Victor
Vasarely, Richard Anuskiewicz, and Julian Stanczak, amongst others. Op
art was unique in the way it internalized technology and captured both
the ecstatic and threatening qualities it posed to the human body.
Furthermore, the exhibition will include a number of kinetic and
"programmed” artworks as well as expanded cinema pieces, which amplify
the radical effects of technology on vision. A section of the exhibition
will present a selection of experimental films and videos realized with
early computer technology. One highlight of the installation will be a
reconstruction of Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome (1963–66), an immersive
cinematic environment where the viewer is bathed in a constant stream of
moving images, anticipating the fusion of information and the body,
typical of the digital era.
As technology has accelerated and proliferated dramatically over the
past twenty years, artists have continued to monitor its impact. A
number of contemporary artists, including Mark Leckey, Henrik Olesen,
and Christopher Williams, will be represented in the exhibition. These
recent works, while reflecting technological changes, also display a
fascination with earlier machines and the types of knowledge and
experiences that are lost as we move from one era to the next,
constantly dreaming up new futures that will never arrive.
"Ghosts in the Machine” is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Associate
Director and Director of Exhibitions, and Gary Carrion-Murayari,
Curator.
www.newmuseum.org
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