Notes tagged with Moment In Time

All the Clouds, Jen Southern

At the ‘Serendipity City‘ exhibition at futureeverything in Manchester yesterday I saw this work – ‘A Planetary Order (Terrestrial Cloud Globe)’ byMartin John Callanan. Its a 3D nylon print of a data visualisation of all the clouds from a single moment in time. It sits on the unsealed concrete floor on its own in a corner, lit by natural light.

Serendipity City seems to have two dominant types of work. One in which browsing is almost becoming an artistic practice and process and this is perhaps a trope of current new media art.  The curated tour, the combination of found internet objects, the flicker of the data stream, the city tour, the experience at a distance browsed from the desktop. And then there are the works that use open source methods and media arts  techniques to have a practical impact on the world, that suggest new ways that things can be done.

But the small quiet world in the corner drew me back, as did the pigeons in David Berman’s poem ‘New York, New York’, the pigeons of the real, that come and inhabit every crack, that fly in to insist there is no clean.

The small quiet world in the corner was like one strong thread pulled from the tangle of quoteable media, a thought, a gesture, solid, considered and resonant. A fragile world, an invisible world that cannot be interrogated beneath its weather systems. It reminded me of Langlands & Bell’s piece for the multiple store , in its contained description of a moment of connection, of one filter on the globe.

It reminded me that the work that speaks most to me is not in the play of images, in a sense it is not about representation but about the power of form, mass and scale. Work that requires me to move around it, to feel its scale, to see light play over its surface.  Works that are what happens when an idea is made physical, when a concept is tested against materials and results in a new negotiation with a physical world that is minutely entangled with data on every scale.

http://sketchagraph.wordpress.com

Aerial View

Aerial View, curated by Phuong:

In the Location of I, artist Martin John Callanan gives himself up for public viewing. He enables viewers to find him at any moment in time through a use of a tracking device that pinpoints his exact location through a series of maps. This form of observation allows Callanan to be continuously accessible to everyone. He states in his artist statement that this project allows him to be both physically and virtually sought and accessible. Advances in technology has allowed people to be available and accessible at all times through various means like cell phones and Blackberrys but also allows people to be elusive if needed. Callanan says that because of the Location of I, he loses the ability to hide and thus increases his vulnerability.

Observation has always played a role in the development of art. People or things have been used as subjects of work or as bystanders in a larger piece without ever even knowing they are involved. The participation or unknowingness of people in a piece of work is an interesting aspect that I believe says a lot of how the work coveys itself. For this exhibit, the works that were selected were chosen because of their connections to the idea of being observed or watched. Observation can be done through several different means. Observation can be taken literally where another is physically watching someone or something or it could be more of a conceptual observation.

It is a part of human nature to observe. We are all fascinated by each other and by our surroundings. Whether through physical means or conceptual ideas, the actions of the world intrigues everyone in some shape or form. We all would like to know more about what we see and at times that can be impossible. Whether because of privacy or a lack of connection to learn more about what we see, observation can be unfulfilled. With the use of contemporary art and new media, the depth of observation can be widened and people can learn more about what they desire to see. This could be done in a virtual world or through means that may seem unrealistic but new media allows for an avenue for people to explore this part of their human nature.

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