Corrupted C#n#m#
A number of other special events will be scheduled during Vermeulen’s month-long residency, please check FLUXspace’s website for details (www.thefluxspace.org). FLUXspace presents its first international artist in residence, Angelo Vermeulen (Sint-Niklaas, BE), and his site-specific, time-based project, Corrupted C#n#m#. Corrupted C#n#m# is an amorphous, process oriented project which explores new and old media through biological and digital experimentation via creating symbiosis and synchronicity between the living and the digital. The exhibition will consist of several components and a variety of processes, which will overlap and intermingle during the project. The experiment/project challenges and investigates parallels and dialectics between human flesh and digital physicality, bacterial infection and data corruption, and cinematic and tangible experience. Corrupted C#n#m# is an artistic inquiry into the notion of the material 'body’ in both the digital and the biological realm. How do we define the relationships between the natural and the artificial? How do they and when can they interface? We hope you can join us to celebrate exploratory art practices, and our first international artist in residence. There will be an opening reception for the exhibition and artist on November 20 from 7 to 10 pm. Laboratory of data corruption: Vermeulen initiated this project with SoundImageCulture and FoAM, two arts organizations in Brussels, with an experiment in which he colonized digital media with biological organisms. With the concept of glitch-art in mind, the following question arose: The source material for the experiment is scientific surgical footage from instructional medical tapes; this didactic and raw footage is displaced from its original VHS container through conversion into a digital file. These files will then be placed onto different digital storage devices that will be manipulated and disrupted through various biological processes: bacteria, fungi, algae, and insects. These processes could cause data errors in the source material emerging as faulty lines and pixels, broken images and color shifts, among other artifacts. The biologically damaged video data will be meticulously recovered with data forensic techniques, and will then be carefully examined and displayed to determine the effects of the bacterial exposure. This physical interaction and experimentation with the actual digital media invokes early abstract cinema techniques, where the visual image on the screen was the consequence of real physical stress and alteration to the film reel. The project also explores the myth of the immaterial nature of digital art media and its production. Bacteriological Map: Through a performative / ritual process, bacteria is being collected around the city of Philadelphia by a team of volunteers, FLUXstaff, and the artist. A map of Philadelphia will chart the locations each bacterial sample is collected from. The collected bacteria will then be cultured following simple instructions from high school science experiments (as found on YouTube). The city becomes a monumental body from which its microbial ecosystem will be superimposed on the digital media, thus making native Philadelphia bacteria act as the agent which will potentially ‘corrupt the cinema’.
Angelo Vermeulen is a visual artist, filmmaker, biologist, author, activist, and DJ. His research in ecology, environmental pollution and teratology informs his art, which includes bio installations, experimental setups incorporating living organisms and sci-fi references. His projects include ‘Blue Shift’, a Darwinian art project in collaboration with biologist Prof. Luc De Meester, and ‘Biomodd’, a worldwide series of cross-cultural, symbiotic installations fusing game culture, ecology and social interaction. In addition to developing a new experimental cinema project based on biologically infected electronics at FLUXspace, he currently also collaborates with the MELiSSA life support division of the European Space Agency. FLUXspace is a Philadelphia based 501(c)3 contemporary arts space dedicated to providing artists, curators, and instigators the opportunity for unrestricted experimentation, professional presentation, and critical dialogue for the purpose of exploring and creating new art practices and media. FoAM is a Brussels based organization committed to providing a context and a structure to research, design and reflect on transdisciplinary creative practices. By seeking out and connecting people in the interstitial spaces between professional and cultural boundaries, they are smoothing the way for a community of ‘generalists’. Also facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops, or mixing digital and physical realities, FoAM steers the creative practices towards ethically and environmentally sustainable practices. Their motto, ‘grow your own worlds’ alludes to their mission: to move from wasteful consumption and mindless dependence to responsible participation in all aspects of our lives. Vermeuleun conducted a preliminary research residency for Corrupted C#n#m# at FoAM, presenting potential project models and receiving feedback. SoundImageCulture / SIC is a Brussels based group of artist-anthropologists committed to storytelling through human encounters that challenge documentary conventions, opening up to sound and image based installations. SIC offers a master class to assist professional filmmakers and artists in the realization of projects. For Corrupted C#n#m#, SIC will set-up a web streaming system to make the exhibition accessible in Belgium. FLUXspace’s exhibition programming is in part supported by the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Art Making Machine Studios, and individual supporters. Special thanks to FoAM and SoundImageCulture for their support of this project. Best Regards,
Images: Extra Ephemera and Digital Detritus:
Press: + Coming Soon +
For more information on this show, contact info[at]thefluxspace[dot]org. |
