Opened June 1, 2017
Collecting Digital Art: Highlights + New Acquisitions from the Thoma Foundation—Code as Form
ART HOUSE
Santa Fe, NM
Free Public Reception: Saturday, June 17, 2017, 5-7pm
Collecting Digital Art: Highlights + New Acquisitions from the Thoma Foundation opens at Art House in Santa Fe on June 1st with a public reception June 17th, 5-7pm, and will feature the first rotation of ongoing seasonal installations, showcasing significant artworks from the digital art collection that include new acquisitions of historic importance. The new installations feature artworks by Guillermo Galindo, Beryl Korot, Brigitte Kowanz, Vera Molnar, Laura Splan and Steina Vasulka.
The summer installations will include works by video art pioneers Beryl Korot and Steina Vasulka. Korot’s Dachau 1974 explores themes of the Nazi concentration camp as a tourist site, with an interplay of images across four monitors, resembling a basic hand-loom weaving pattern. Vasulka’s Violin Power, 1970-1978, a visionary work within the early history of experimental audiovisual art, uses recorded sound from her violin performance to generate optical video effects. In this innovative work, Vasulka adapts her training as a classical violinist, taming her instrument to convert sound waveforms into electronic signals that, when synthesized with video, produce abstracted imagery. Additionally, nine plotter drawings from the 1976 Transformations series by Vera Molnar, a 2016 Jacquard tapestry by Laura Splan that explores the use of computerized loom techniques to weave patterns derived from electromyography (EMG) readings, and Waveform Coded Landscape, 2015, by genre-defying performer, visual and sound artist Guillermo Galindo, will be on view.
Collecting Digital Art: Highlights + New Acquisitions from the Thoma Foundation opens at Art House in Santa Fe on June 1st with a public reception June 17th, 5-7pm, and will feature the first rotation of ongoing seasonal installations, showcasing significant artworks from the digital art collection that include new acquisitions of historic importance. The new installations feature artworks by Guillermo Galindo, Beryl Korot, Brigitte Kowanz, Vera Molnar, Laura Splan and Steina Vasulka.
The summer installations will include works by video art pioneers Beryl Korot and Steina Vasulka. Korot’s Dachau 1974 explores themes of the Nazi concentration camp as a tourist site, with an interplay of images across four monitors, resembling a basic hand-loom weaving pattern. Vasulka’s Violin Power, 1970-1978, a visionary work within the early history of experimental audiovisual art, uses recorded sound from her violin performance to generate optical video effects. In this innovative work, Vasulka adapts her training as a classical violinist, taming her instrument to convert sound waveforms into electronic signals that, when synthesized with video, produce abstracted imagery. Additionally, nine plotter drawings from the 1976 Transformations series by Vera Molnar, a 2016 Jacquard tapestry by Laura Splan that explores the use of computerized loom techniques to weave patterns derived from electromyography (EMG) readings, and Waveform Coded Landscape, 2015, by genre-defying performer, visual and sound artist Guillermo Galindo, will be on view.
The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation’s digital art collection spans the global history of computer art of the past fifty years. The collection includes some of the first algorithmic plotter drawings on paper, digital animation, software-driven, generative, and custom coded artworks, interactive works based on real-time gaming platforms, virtual reality, internet-based or networked art, and works that utilize LED and LCD displays. The Foundation recognizes the cultural and intellectual value of artworks that make use of experimental and innovative technologies.
