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Newsticker, link list, time machine: HOLO.mg/stream logs emerging trajectories in art, science, technology, and culture––every day
“Precisely because science fiction is so generative for our technological imaginaries, we need it to be genuinely experimental, committed to an expansive reimagining of not only what technology is, but what the future can be—and, most importantly, who gets to create it.”
“Olafur Eliasson’s recent and more spectacular work may be the product of this frustration, of seeing so clearly the change that has come and yet feeling so acutely our inability to respond.”
Reinterpreting revered Canadian art history, Jon Sasaki’s “Homage” opens at MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie (CA). The Canadian conceptualist presents photographs of bacterial cultures grown from palettes and brushes used by the Group of Seven (image: Microbes Swabbed from a Palette Used by F.H. Varley detail, 2020). Created for a 2021 McMichael Canadian Art Collection exhibition, Sasaki intervenes in “the tradition-bound genre of landscape painting through the lens of contemporary photography.”
“Image-making software shortcuts laborious processes. Studio training gets subbed out for tutorials. Painting becomes odourless and nontoxic, offering itself up as a swipe of the mouse.”
The latest addition to the Rice Public Art initiative, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Climate Parliament (2024, image) opens at Rice University in Houston (US). Installed in a public path through the Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science, an undulating canopy of 481 speaker-lights beam light patterns and play a dense mix of audio clips of environmentalist “protests, academic presentations, and civil disobedience” (featuring voices include Greta Thunberg and Timothy Morton) to foot traffic below.
Marietje Schaake
The Tech Coup
“I do not see as much of a discussion about who gets to decide where legitimacy to make fundamental decisions about national security or the future of use of natural resources or landscapes, where that legitimacy to decide for companies comes from, and in turn, where accountability mechanisms come from.”
Diving into simulation, Rindon Johnson’s “Best Synthetic Answer” opens at Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai. The American artist presents 19 works across an eclectic range of mediums for his first Asia Pacific museum show. The centrepiece is the titular video installation Best Synthetic Answer #1: Crossing… (2024, image), in which Johnson’s avatar swims from San Francisco to Shanghai, a gesture “that attempts (and ultimately fails) to describe the immensity and multidimensionality of the Pacific Ocean.”
“To make machines (and masters) seem intelligent and original, it is crucial to hide the labour and workers that enable their operation.”
Seeding the intersection of agriculture and activism, “Art Farm” opens at the Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarborough. At the invitation of curator Amish Morrell, artist Shannon Gerard and the Outdoor School and Futurefarmers collectives, “model new—and old—ways of land stewardship.” The latter presents documentation of Soil Procession: A Movement of Soil from the Country to the City (2015, image), a parade transporting soil from 50 Oslo-area farms to a communal bakehouse and grain field.
“The things they were saying television would do to us and do to our culture are right. For better and for worse, they saw it all coming, and they described a world way less warped and deranged by all this than the one we actually live in.”
Canadian software artist Sarah Friend shares a batch of freshly minted Memoryforms (2024), the collaborative on-chain memorial for her NFT Lifeforms (2021) that invites past carers to inscribe a message. Widely celebrated as one of the more interesting social experiments in the Web3 space, token holders had 90 days to keep their NFT entity alive by giving it away to another carer. As one owner of several (now dead) Lifeforms laments: “I wish I had set calendar notifications to take better care of my pack.”
“People would answer yes or no to a question that I put up. And for about 16 years after that, I was not invited to participate in anything at the Museum of Modern Art.”
Advocating for ecological sustainability and solidarity, “Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice” opens at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Guest curators Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake present newly commissioned works from Cannupa Hanska Luger, Garnett Puett, Lan Tuazon, Ron Finley, and Mel Chin that “deconstruct polarized political attitudes surrounding climate justice.” Twenty international artists including Ryoji Ikeda (image: point of no return, 2018), ikkibawiKrrr, and Xin Liu also contribute.
Exploring temperature and information, Agustina Woodgate’s “More Heat Than Light” opens at Stroom Den Haag (NL). Drawing on three years of research at QuTech, the Argentinian artist activates materials and variables from quantum communication—diamonds, lenses, time, and temperature. Featured works include Future Star (2024), a thermal printer that outputs a climate log, and Radiations (2024, image), an array of infrared lamps and sensors with poems etched on them.
“An unrecognized pop art masterpiece, a proto-GIF, a sarcastic, feminist work, an affirmation of autonomy, and a slap in the face as much to the conservative, technophobic academy as to the technofetishist, male-dominated world of technology.”
After honouring her with the 5th DAM Digital Art Award (nomination via critic Domenico Quaranta), DAM Projects Berlin celebrates American artist Rebecca Allen with a solo show. An early innovator of CGI and computer animation—the 1974 punchcard-generated sequence Girl Lifts Skirt (image) is considered one of the first pieces of feminist computer art—Allen is renowned for foregrounding “the body within technology” and collaborating with fellow icons Twyla Tharp, David Byrne, Kraftwerk, and Nam June Paik.
“I’ve spent the last two months at the lab comparing little plastic tiles of my jean jacket, shoes, and skin with the real thing.”
Chia Amisola’s desktop and browser performance I Miss Every Sound I’ve Ever Heard, Does Anyone Feel The Same? (2024) takes over the window display of Künstlerhaus Bethanian, tantalizing Berliners with a dreamy net art narrative on sound, memory, and the body. Part of the ongoing Robert-Seidel-curated screening series “Phantom Horizons,” the Filipino internet artist’s hypertext choreography delves into the hidden layers of the Web, revealing its preset configurations and intimate connections within its digital infrastructure.
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