theonlyrealityisnow I, 2012

(click last image to enlarge)

theonlyrealityisnow I is another mural by Hendrik Beikirch which adds to a now substantial amount of works painted all over NYC in the past years.

> more here, here and here

André Hemer – Hot Wallpapers (at Antoinette Godkin Gallery)

André Hemer – Hot Wallpapers (at Antoinette Godkin Gallery)

André Hemer – Hot Wallpapers (at Antoinette Godkin Gallery)

André Hemer – wallpaper_03 (hot wallpapers), 2012, 140cm × 125cm, Acrylic and pigment on canvas

André Hemer – wallpaper_012 smudged, 2012, 41.3cm × 36.3cm, Digital pigment prints on Harman gloss fibre-based paper

André Hemer – wallpaper_05 smudged, 2012, 41.3cm × 36.3cm, Digital pigment prints on Harman gloss fibre-based paper

André Hemer – wallpaper_05 smudged, 2012, 41.3cm × 36.3cm, Digital pigment prints on Harman gloss fibre-based paper

Android 4.1 – Jelly Bean wallpapers

ABOUT HOT WALLPAPERS

Shortly after completing his solo show at one of New Zealand’s most important non-commercial art spaces, the Christchurch Art Gallery, Sydney based artist André Hemer is showing his new series Hot Wallpapers at Antoinette Godkin Gallery in Auckland, New Zealand.

The exhibited prints and paintings are based on wallpapers of the new version of Android, Google’s operating system for mobile devices, and like much of Hemer’s recent work, use an archive of widely shared and recognisable images. By attempting to entrap these digital artefacts in another kind of viewing screen by turning them into physical objects, he is increasing the inherently short lifespan of the digital artefacts and touches on the contemporary psyche of aesthetic disposability.

The exhibition opened on 14 November and runs until 08 December, 2012.

André Hemer about Hot Wallpapers

“Basically, you go to the root of memory, and it’s all about interaction with found documents – look at how you acquire language. You mirror the environment around you. That’s what sampling does – it’s a process of recall that changes memory as you recall it.” —DJ Spooky

The works created in Hot Wallpapers began with a downloaded set of wallpapers taken from a popular tablet device released in 2012. Designed to be used as an official preloaded wallpaper set for a Google Nexus 7 Tablet, these default images have become widely shared and recognisable; an aesthetic shared as part of a collective memory.

Akin to its physical fore bearer, a digital wallpaper covers the pixelated walls of an electronic device. When graphic aesthetics are aligned to a certain type of brand, device, or model they inevitably follow the societal fashion of that device. At first graphically signifying the newest and hottest and then over time coming to embody the outmoded. Thus for devices which are ubiquitous and otherwise generic in appearance, alternative wallpapers can become a type of personal customization.

The images themselves are released by Google- designed by illustrators or designers with the intent of creating a visual branding for the device. They vary in their appearance, although there are some commonalities- a shared mix of simple hues, a bevy of gradient fades, and some geometric designs to give the screen an appearance of depth and optical play. Rather than being memorable because of a perceived uniqueness or originality- the images bear visual notoriety as freely shared and distributed files existing on millions of devices. The replication of image producing an aesthetic mark on the collective memory of the present. Certain images could be mistaken for bad renditions or reproductions of geometric abstraction or colour-field painting, while others are hopelessly visually tied to a sci-fi utopia.

The lifespan for a digital artefact is inherently shorter than that of any physical object. An electronic device has a longevity measured in months, not years. An image which is associated or tied to such a device will undoubtedly share a similar fate. What happens to sentimentality in this scenario? What happens when an image is lost into the digital ephemera? After all, a digital image does not and never did, exist as an object in the world. But what happens if we do translate and transform these images into objects?

By making these digital images into objects- both printed and painted, I am attempting to entrap them in another kind of viewing screen. The objects become framed akin to a wallpaper contained by the bevel of an electronic device. Some explicitly refer to the desktop picture by repeating a sampled pattern to fill the screen. Other images are interfered with in their various translations through mediums- purposefully sampling- or shifting completely from the initial source, to become works in a painting paradigm. Various smudges appear sometimes drawn, and sometimes incidental or as a visual glitch of some kind. The conceptual distinction between sampling, ‘glitching’, and drawing becomes increasingly blurred.

As with much of my recent work, Hot Wallpapers began with the idea of working with an archive of found images. Rather than being location or contextually specific, Hot Wallpapers aims at swinging and hitting a fleeting idea of the universal; the idea that a seemingly arbitrary collection of images can tell us something important about this time and place- both through the content, and the act and process of collection and transaction. I am sampling images, either wholly or through a translation to become something new- to capture or contain an unseen persuasiveness.

Hot Wallpapers is an attempt at creating a show from soon to be discarded parts, touching on the contemporary psyche of aesthetic disposability. It is an attempt at creating meaning through the process of sampling this digital visual diaspora- seeking to locate the conceptual distance between the digital glitch, sampling, and the ambiguity of translation, transformation, and transactions between digital media. In sampling these freely downloadable images I am embracing their lineage and function, as well as providing a new scenario in which they can be considered.

> more about André Hemer
> download press-kit with more images (web version 3mb, print version 37mb)

Silence:Shapes – B/B, 2012 (from Silence: Shapes series)

New shooting for his Flags series in Rotterdam Centrum

In Chuan Art book (#2) from Taiwan

Restlessly Filippo Minelli has been traveling throughout Europe. Several new works have been made, one of them is Santa Europa da Esperança, a public installation in Lisboa. Others have been exhibited at the Noordkaap Tour, a group show in Dordrecht, Netherlands, which showed a review of some of his recent works: the We don’t need you at all performance in Cologne, Germany, the Flags of Istanbul and others.

Minelli’s next exhibition takes place in London this Saturday (Nov 10), a 1 day only group show at Chris Beetles Fine Photographs Gallery. After that a solo show in Cologne, Germany at Ruttkowski68 opens on Dec 7. Pick up the next issues of Elephant (NL) and Inventario (IT) because they feature some of his new works.