The lead exhibition, on view through August 30, 2008, of the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge features work ranging from printed leaflets to algorithmic films to kinetic sculptural installations. They collectively confound our expected question “What’s next?” with questions about technological progress and its consequences.
The term “superlight” has many possible connotations, from weightlessness to levity to brightness. The artists in Superlight use these characteristics to illuminate some of the weightiest issues of our time. In the context of global climate change, terrorism, pervasive war and inescapable poverty, learning how to cope with “what’s next” takes on a new urgency. In works ranging from printed leaflets to algorithmic films to kinetic sculptural installations, these artists address questions about technological progress and its consequences.
A number of the works in Superlight are topical, such as Jane Marsching’s audio-visualization of temperatures at the North Pole over the course of the next 100 years or Piotr Szyhalski’s propaganda meticulously produced according to the rules and procedures of US military PsyOps manuals. The British group Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji (formerly known as Mongrel) examines the paradoxical role of coltan, a rare mineral used in most cell phones. Mined in the Congo, the substance both contributes to genocidal war in the area and allows refugee populations to stay connected by enabling the telecommunications network.
Other work in Superlight is more metaphorical in nature. Is Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Heaven and Hell about being nice to people on the way up or the inevitability of descent? Situated in Silicon Valley, is it about the tribulations of the business cycle in particular or the giddy rollercoaster of humanity in general?
Adam Nash examines the increasing confluence of the virtual and the actual worlds in Ways to Wave. This immersive audio-visual sculpture is manipulated by visitors to the exhibition via an acrylic controller and, concurrently, by “players” signed on to Nash’s virtual installation in “Second Life,” a popular online multi-user virtual world. The various players, controller and artwork are in a symbiotic relationship in a realm between the virtual and actual. -- www.sjmusart.org
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