All Digital
On view January 20th, 2006 through May 7th, 2006
All Digital brings together some of the most compelling examples of artistic achievement by a group of international artists working in the proliferating field of computer generated art, known as "new media" or "digital art." By using digital technology, these artists exponentially broaden the expressive and aesthetic possibilities of art, radically extending the "palette" and materials available to them and the forms that works of art can take. This art is kinetic and can be interactive. Its imagery evolves over time—in some cases, ad infinitum—perpetually reproducing and mutating. These works are dynamic, innovative art forms that exist as objects in the "physical" world or as manifestations of form, pattern, color, sound and ideas in cyberspace. In exploring and harnessing the vast potential that computers and digital technologies offer, these artists have ventured into an exciting, rapidly accelerating domain of creative possibility.
As the first major exhibition in this region to present individual and installation based works by new media artists, All Digital features world-premieres along with installations commissioned specifically for the exhibition. Works in All Digital range from John Simon's "code" art, mesmerizing kinetic compositions that constantly evolve in moving patterns on mounted laptop screens, flat panels or wall projections, to PS2 Diaries (2004), a gaming-based artwork by cyber feminist and game modifier, Anne-Marie Schleiner. The world premiere of Charles Sandison's Index (2006), a large-scale installation of projected data, is a kinetic, immersive environment in which the words of an entire encyclopedia are transformed into fluid clusters of text that stream throughout the gallery over floors, walls and ceilings.
Other highlights of All Digital include two groundbreaking interactive works of art that bridge the virtual and the “real” or physical, world. DiNA (2005-6), by Lynn Hershman Leeson, is an installation in the form of a projected virtual persona that embodies artificial intelligence. This cyber being, equipped with voice recognition technologies and wired to the Internet, can converse, answering questions prompted by viewers. Another interactive artwork is an unprecedented virtual sculpture by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau titled LifeWriter (2006). In this installation, viewers become participants, or activators, who enter data into an interface by typing words on an archaic typewriter placed on a table in the middle of the gallery. The text is then transformed into quasi-artificial life forms that appear organic—like insects or micro-organisms — yet abstract at the same time. These virtual organisms move or "swim" on the paper — metabolizing, reproducing, transforming and eventually dying in a process where the act of writing text creates artificial creatures that seem alive.
Also featured is a stunning digital animation installation by Paul Chan titled Happiness (finally) after 35,000 Years of Civilization – after Henry Darger and Charles Fourier, (2000-2003). Leo Villareal has created a triptych of scintillating digital wall sculptures, titled Instances (2005), for the exhibition. In this work, computer programmed LED lights flash across the sculpture's surface in constantly moving patterns that float, swirl, multiply and become increasingly dense and complex before imploding and reverting to the beginning.
All Digital also includes a CyberLounge with computer terminals providing visitors with access to web-based art projects by over 60 artists, links to online exhibitions of digital art and a selection of media art centers from around the world all of which offer a sampling of the astounding creative activity that exists and continues to proliferate in cyberspace.
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Leo Villareal, Instances, 2005, LEDs, microcontroller, custom software, aluminum, 3 panels, each 24 x 24 x 3 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Sandra Gering Gallery, New York
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 Introduction to ArtCasts and All Digi...Sommerer and Mignonneau: Art Creating Vi...Sommerer and Mignonneau:Using Letters to...Sommerer and Mignonneau: The TypewriterSommerer and Mignonneau: Being "New Medi...Hershman Leeson: The Development of DiNAHershman Leeson: On DiNA's "Personality"Hershman Leeson: Reflections on CASE, CI...Hershman Leeson: Viewers and Misconcepti...Sandison: The Use of WordsSandison: Behavorial Models for WordsSandison: The Project Text of IndexSandison: The Viewer Experience of In...Sandison: Misconceptions about Digital A...Schleiner: Gaming Influences and Interes...Schleiner: PS2 and "Machinima"Schleiner: On Role PlayingSimon: Software as a MediumSimon: The Artistic ProcessSimon: Rule Making, LimitationsSimon: Surprises and EvolutionsSimon: From Abstraction to Social and Po...Simon: Future "Dream Projects"Villareal: Influences of His WorkVillareal: Creating InstancesVillareal: Light as a MediumVillareal: Hiding the "Tech" in Digital ...
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