An Exquisite Morass Made Tangible, a tile and mixed-media installation, was included in the show Non-Text, curated by Leslie Atzmon and Brian Spolans, at the University Gallery at Eastern Michigan University, October 30 – December 11, 2013. The show also travelled to the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University and was shown there from January 11 – February 23, 2014.
From the exhibition prospectus:
“Non-Text” focuses on art and design that puts pressure on the relationships between textual media and visual media. The work in “Non-Text” challenges Western cultural assumptions that text is necessarily the primary and most efficient communication medium. The work in this exhibition wittingly or unwittingly uses textual media in ways that obscure written language’s ability to communicate. Each piece employs text, typography, or writing to create aesthetic forms that express visual meaning rather than as verbal structures that convey written content. This will be an international invitational exhibition that will feature work done by artists, creative writers, and designers who work in a range of media.
Description of my work from the catalog:
Humans rely on patterns—of words, images, sounds, events—to make meaning and understand the world around them. The vast amount of content found on the Internet has helped to shape these patterns for over twenty years. However, this sascading stream of information obfuscates as much as it informs. Even a seemingly straightforward Google search has been curated and shaped by invisible forces. The patterns and complex algorithms used by the computer influence our own pattern-making and perceptions.
This project explores the patterns distilled and displayed by Google, and how those patterns can be reconfigured in ways that alter our experience of online search. Using the raw materials of search results—visual screen grabs and textual headlines—and the context of “the news,” I have created experimental kaleidoscope-like visuals and typographic studies that reveal relationships within and among the texts. When paired and displayed as a physical installation that transforms the pixel-focused world of the internet into a tangible set of artifacts, viewers are invited to make new connections and juxtapositions that transcend the generic Google list.
You can view the accompanying interface for this project here.
Images of the gallery piece:
Images of the web interface included with piece:
Images of the entire Non-Text exhibition at the University Gallery at Eastern Michigan University:
I am honored and humbled to have been included in such an amazing and innovative show! A special thank you to Leslie Atzmon for inviting me to participate, and to her co-curator Brian Spolans for agreeing to include me.