Review of CHANCE & CONTROL at the V&A

Installation view of Chance and Control at the V&A, showing early and mid-period drawings by Harold Cohen

Read my review in Studio International of the new display of computer art at the Victoria & Albert Museum London – Chance and Control: Art in the age of Computers and learn of the remarkable diversity of the V&A’s collection and how it has grown from early beginnings in just ten years.  Among many things of interest here are three fabulous works by Harold Cohen from his early, mid and later period.  Exhibition on now until 18 November 2018.

Remembering Gustav Metzger 1926-2017

I feel privileged to have known the ground-breaking artist Gustav Metzger

Gustav Metzger at the book launch of A Computer in the Art Room, CAS event, London 2008

who passed away a couple of weeks ago.  He was a very early member of the Computer Arts Society and the first editor of our journal PAGE from 1969.

His links with the early world of British computer arts is discussed in my article published today on the BCS

 

 

Auto-Creative Art

Gustav Metzger, Liquid Crystal Environment, 1965/2005, exhibition view. Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge photo: Paul Allitt
Gustav Metzger, Liquid Crystal Environment, 1965/2005, exhibition view. Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge, photo: Paul Allitt

On view last month in Cambridge was Gustav Metzger’s Auto-Creative art, a variety of materials and methods demonstrative of his long interest in kinetic art, particularly movement and random activity. His 1964 statement “At a certain point the work takes over, is in activity beyond the detailed control of the artist, reaches a power, grace, momentum, transcendence” is apt for an installation which has both a hypnotic visual and a psychedelic delivery.  Read the full review and learn about his connection to the Computer Arts Society here.

Fake Nature

Jennifer Steinkamp, Judy Crook 1, 2012, video installation, 13 x 10 feet (installed Greengrassi Gallery 2013).  Photo by Marcus Leith, copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
Jennifer Steinkamp, Judy Crook 1, 2012, video installation, 13 x 10 feet (installed Greengrassi Gallery 2013). Photo by Marcus Leith, copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.

Jennifer Steinkamp’s beautiful tree moves as though blowing in the wind and transforms over time as the seasons change. This Los Angeles based artist explores ideas about architectural space, motion and perception using computer animation to engage viewers through use of transient elements in the natural world. Read more about Steinkamp and her work in this month’s BCS column here:http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/50226

Form and Number

Daniel Brown, screenshot from series On Growth and Form, real-time 3D, 2013.  Collection of the University of Dundee, copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
Daniel Brown, screenshot from series On Growth and Form, real-time 3D, 2013. Collection of the University of Dundee, copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.

This month my BCS column investigates an interesting commission from the University of Dundee Museum

Services who have been working with theArt Fund on a £100,000 project to explore the influence of Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson in the visual arts. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the Dundee Collections and the Thompson connection, this grant funding has uniquely facilitated the creation of an art work itself with an interdisciplinary concept at its heart – On Growth and Form by Daniel Brown. Read the full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/50050

Colour Computation

Ernest Edmonds, Shaping Space, 2012.  Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
Ernest Edmonds, Shaping Space, 2012. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.

For over forty years Ernest Edmonds has had an interest in interactivity and his current
exhibition at Site Gallery Sheffield demonstrates a career-long conversation between drawing, painting and computer-based work. Ernest is our BCS featured artist of the month, read about Shaping Space here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/49266

Here I am enjoying Ernest’s show which continues until 2 February.CM at Site Gallery

Digital Dolly Mix

Dario Lanza, Watersun Vision number 04, C-print, unique, 120x100cm, 2012

My article for the British Computer Society this month is a selection submitted by readers of this column and members of the Computer Arts Society. The high standard and sheer variety of works produced under what might be termed computer art , never ceases to amaze me and if you are as intrigued as I am to discover what your colleagues and fellow aficionados of the computational process have produced over the course of 2012, then don’t miss it : http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/49107  See new work by Richard Colson, Anabela Costa, Dario Lanza (featured above), Fabrizio Poltronieri, Brian Reffin Smith and Andrew Welsby.

I’m on BBC Radio 4 discussing Computer Art!

Shaping Space by Ernest Edmonds

Hear me discussing the work of pioneering computer artists Manfred Mohr and Ernest Edmonds, (both of whom have shows opening in England this week), with John Wilson of BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. The programme aired on Thursday 15th November 2012 at 7.15pm. Click this link to play: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ntjq7

Light Logic, Ernest Edmonds’s exhibition is at the Site Gallery, Sheffield (17 Nov – 2 Feb 2013).Also a mention on the British Computer Society website:http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/48954