16:07
Images shown are not from the Swarm exhibition.
Julie Mehretu: Ruffian Logistics
Matthew Ritchie: Self-Portrait in 2064
(detail)
This has been blogged elsewhere, but it’s interesting enough to bring up again. The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia currently have a show they call “Swarm”. The title is a tip of the hat to scientific and cultural theories, as well as a more general idea of “unplanned and decentralized modes of organization”. Some obvious references:
- The swarm in Artificial Life as an expression of emergent behavior.
- Negri & Hardt’s social theory of swarm intelligence
- Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome, less popular these days, but still…
Curated by well-known designers and curators Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton, the exhibition brings together artists that typically would not be shown together. Painting is juxtaposed with generative software works and installation art, well-known art world names mix with less obvious ones. Generator.x readers will be familiar with C.E.B. Reas and Jason Salavon, but perhaps less so with Julie Mehretu or Matthew Ritchie. Of course, the reverse would be true for readers from the mainstream art world.
The interesting aspect of this exhibition is how the works are selected for relevance to a cultural idea (the swarm), and not for their inclusion in specific art trends. Generative art, still an outsider art form as far as the art world is concerned, suddenly makes sense in the show. After all, it tends to address issues similar to those explored in the complex paintings of Mehretu or Ritchie (if nothing else, then certainly on a visual level). While generative artists usually shy away from talking about the relationship between their work and the human condition, this show makes just that connection.
Julie Mehretu reference via dataisnature. More to follow.
I’m really pleased to see this commentary, because it was our goal as curators to see media art as part of the broader world of art and culture, not as an isolated practice. Perhaps because Abbott and I are designers, we are able to look at art from a more catholic position than an art-world insider would, or a media art specialist. I have never been interested in “media art” per se; rather, I see it as embracing and commenting on the tools and phenomena that are changing life for everyone.
[...] source:Generator.X [...]
I’ve been a fan of Matthew Ritchie’s work for some time now. A bit more representational, but equally visually saturated, are the works of Benjamin Edwards and Fabian Marcaccio.
Hi. Nice works and post. Here is something that migth be of your interest. Thanks, v.
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[...] via GeneratorX – a very interesting project in both design and content – comes the information for the following exhibition. Swarm theory is an idea animating contemporary art, science, design, digital media, and social theory. “Swarm logic” is seen in works that use vast numbers of small parts to create systems whose final behavior or effect cannot be wholly predicted. Artists working with computers and new media construct rules that draw together data and generate behaviors that evolve over time. Sculptors and painters create structures and patterns based on the interrelationships and inherent properties of individual elements. Swarm connects the social life of bees, birds, crowds, and cities to contemporary aesthetics, as seen in the fascination of artists and designers with how simple, discrete units accumulate into complex systems. (link) [...]
Thanks! I really like the generative swarm artworks by matthew ritchie!
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