From Virtual Wallpapers to Emoji Gardens, We Explored Digital Art at Miami Art Week
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
From Virtual Wallpapers to Emoji Gardens, We Explored
Digital Art at Miami Art Week
By Benoit Palop — Dec 8 2014
Hypersalon – Claudia Matté + Daniel Temkin + Alma Allaro
When the art world headed south for its annual beachside getaway, the young but tightly-knit digital arts
community took advantage of the migration: day by day, slowly gaining traction in the world of contemporary
art, a handful of cutting-edge practices made waves at Art Basel Miami this past weekend.
4
Palop, Benoit. "From Virtual Wallpapers to Emoji Gardens, We Expored Digital
Art at Miami Art Week." The Creators Project. 8 December 2014. Web
Alternative, satellite, and parallel fairs, like PULSE, NADA, Untitled, and new models, including Hypersalon,
benefited from the ambient turmoil, bringing forth digital-based artworks that introduced emerging practices to
both large audiences and contemporary art collectors. Over the warm December weekend, The Creators
Project explored many of the different spaces showcasing the impressive digital creations. Here's a brief
overview of the artwork that made us tick:
Held underneath PULSE's massive tent, PULSE-Play caught our attention right away. This selection of videos
and new media pieces carefully curated by Lindsay Howard, was an exceptional showcase for the digital arts.
“PULSE Play has been an incredible opportunity to introduce the contemporary art collectors at PULSE to
leading artists working in video, net art, and immersive 3D environment,” Howard told The Creators Project.
From Alexandra Gorczynski's After Dark, via NewHive
5
“It's a hub inside the tent where visitors are encouraged to lounge on couches, relax, and take in the works –
which are also for sale,” she said. “ PULSE-Play, which featured works by Tilo Baumgaertel, Alexandra
Gorczynski, Carlo Ferraris, Tracey Snelling, and Idan Levin, made news this week because Zhulong
Gallery successfully sold an art website by Gorczynski for $5,000. "The event is exclusively focused on
contemporary art, and so it's been thrilling to see them embrace digital as one of the most contemporary
forms of art,” Howard added.
Wallpapers - Brenna Murphy + Rick Silva - Photos courtesy of Nate Hitchcock.
While we were previously taken aback by Sara Ludy, Nicolas Sassoon and Sylvain Sailly's Wallpapers
project, we didn't hesitate when we got the chance to see the dynamic digital desktops installation in a new
display. Presented in a room on the 10th floor of the Deauville Beach Resort, the comfort and intimacy of the
audiovisual experience—co-curated by Artsy’s Julia Colavita and East Hampton Shed’s Nate Hitchcock—at
NADA offered a brief respite from the fair's madness.
6
Hypersalon - Rick Silva
Our “coup de coeur,” however, was Hypersalon, a collaborative curatorial project between the Brooklyn-based
Transfer gallery and the Paris-based gallery, XPO.
“Hypersalon is not a new satellite art fair, it is a new way to support contemporary art in the context of the
networked culture we are now living in!” Philippe Riss, director of XPO gallery and co-founder of Hypersalon
told The Creators Project.
With regard to the concept and the main inspiration, Riss said that the two galleries “decided to create an
intimate salon-style exhibition to discuss and present the work of artists. The word 'salon' has been chosen in
reference to the 19th century salons where artists, intellectuals, and mecenes (patrons) met in their living
rooms to discuss and debate cultural questions.”
7
Hypersalon - Pierre Clement + Vincent Broquaire
8
Spread out over the course of a week, this "salon 2.0" presented artist talks, conversations, two exhibition
spaces, and one experimental moving image suite—curated by invited special guests—and delighted the
audience with its original format, its quality content, and its dynamic and friendly vibe. “Visitors have really
been seduced by the rhythm of Hypersalon, the time devoted to the substance and also by the deep
engagement and collaboration of the two galleries,” he concluded.
Below, check out some pictures from our quasi-sleepless weekend in and around Art Basel Miami:
PULSE Play display view
9
Zhulong Gallery booth @ PULSE
10
MY CREATIVE LIFE
AT ART BASEL, A COLLECTOR JUST
BOUGHT THIS URL FOR $5,000
ARTIST ALEXANDRA GORCZYNSKI SOLD A PIECE OF
DIGITAL MEDIA HOSTED ON THE ART PLATFORM
NEWHIVE.
BY CHRIS GAYOMALI
Down in Miami, celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Combs are flocking to spend
their cumulative millions on contemporary works of art, from Picasso to Keith Haring. One of
those pieces snatched up at one of the many satellite fairs by an undisclosed buyer on
Thursday was by an artist named Alexandra Gorczynski, which ordinarily isn't all that surprising.
But what Gorczynski's camp sold isn’t a painting, or a sculpture, or even what one might
consider a traditional installation. It is a digital piece of multimedia hosted on a URL,
smokeinmirrors.net.
Its selling price, purportedly the first of its kind at a major international art festival, is $5,000.
11
Gayomali, Chris. "At Art Basel, A Collector Just Bought this URL for $5,000."
Fast Company. 5 December 2014. Web
"After Dark," pictured above on the right, was created and presented on the art-sharing
platform NewHive. We’ve written about NewHive before—it's essentially a collection of
webpage tools designed for creatives with big imaginations to build whatever beautiful/
demented thing they'd like, the only limitation being it has to fit in the browser.
Artists like Gorczynski—many of whom have made names for themselves via the Weird Internet
—use NewHive’s tools to slather GIFs, videos, MIDIs, and other kinds of artfully arranged pixels
all over standalone web pages, all without the prerequisite of knowing how to code. Each
"hive" is a bit difficult to explain and break down with a traditional art appreciation vocabulary,
and that ambiguity is kind of the point.
"After Dark" was displayed on a screen in an exhibition by Zhulong Gallery at PULSE art fair,
which decided to feature the piece alongside a collection of Gorczynski’s other prints. Its
purchaser is choosing to keep their identity private, for now, though I’m told it is a "well
respected collector who owns a lot of important work in the contemporary art scene" who will
notably continue to host the piece freely in the public domain. It's why we're allowed to
embed the work here, like so:
12
"It’s an opportunity for all these artists creating digital work to know there is a market for their
work," says Lindsay Howard, an independent curator working with NewHive. "It’s a whole new
way to think about doing collecting. It’s a unique piece. You’re the only one who owns the
domain name."
It is a bit like loaning a painting to a museum, only instead of a roped-off exhibition that you
have to wait in line for, it’s on display for anyone with an Internet connection to consume,
critique, or reinterpret.
One of the more fascinating aspects of the sale is the contract that was signed, which sheds
light into the ambiguous process of transferring the ownership of digital property—or what
actually gets handed to the new owner of the URL.
13It isn't a matter of simply forking over a login and password. In this case, the contract used here
was drawn up originally by artist Rafaël Rozendaal, which has been used for digital art
purchases before, and is freely available online for anyone to use.
Rozendaal's contract includes a stipulation that the intellectual property rights, "including but
not limited to copyright," per its language, will continue to remain with the original creator—
Gorczynski, in this case. The agreement stipulates that the new owner will also inherit the
responsibility of making the artwork as accessible to as many potential eyes as possible. These
protections fall very much in line with the artist-first, egalitarian principles on which NewHive
was created:
It's a bit mind-bending, certainly, especially considering the fact that intellectual property on
the Internet—especially image-based IP—is still largely chaotic, abstract, and difficult to
enforce without the technological infrastructure of, say, Google. But NewHive is at its most
comfortable when it is operating outside of the parameters of convention, just like the artists
who use it. "This is the first-generation of Internet artists trying to make money off their work,"
NewHive CEO Zach Verdin told me earlier this year. "If you're a multimedia artist and you're
making money on the Internet, everything goes."
14Interview: Curator Lindsay Howard Discusses PULSE Play Miami
Beach and Collecting Art in the Tumblr Era
BY NICK SCHONBERGER NOV 18, 2014
Courtesy of LYNCH THAM Gallery via PULSE Contemporary Art Fair.
The fresh frontier of art, the Internet, democratizes contemporary art. Its practitioners can, for the first time, reach an unlimited audience and play,
almost without boundary, with the potential of social platforms. Among the myriad of community-driven web products, Tumblr is king in the art
world. There, artists can both explore the web as medium and employ its opportunity as an incubator of ideas.
In 2014, web art has emerged from the fringes to become a celebrated point of discovery. Led by director Helen Toomer, PULSE Contemporary Art
Fair is helping to progress this cutting-edge contemporary work, incorporating digital art into its thoughtful, innovative programming.
PULSE’s new media platform, PULSE Play (sponsored by Tumblr), is helmed by independent curator Lindsay Howard. With a keen eye for
emerging digital trends, Howard explores the ways the Internet shapes art and culture. For Play, she’s selected six short works that respond to the
concept of noise—whether aural or the frenetic buzz of media.
Two of the videos are by Italian-born, New York-based artist Carlo Ferraris. His work, I’m no longer obsessed with winning, is akin to a rap video: a
first person romp through Times Square in which the narrator/singer spits out lines pulled from passing billboards. He creates a harmony, a
pattern, within a disjointed environment. Alexandra Gorczynski, who also has two works in PULSE Play, produces folksy, hypnotizing collages
that surface a stoic response to the complexity of contemporary life. Tilo Baumgaertel is also represented, and
Idan Levin, and Tracey Snelling collaborated on a video as well. All of the artists are thematically linked to galleries—Lipzig, Germany’s galerie
Kleindienst, the LYNCH THAM and Rena Bransten galleries in New York, and Dallas’ Zhulong Gallery—exhibiting at the fair. Play launches today
on PULSE's Tumblr.
15
Schonberger, Nick. "Interview: Curator Lindsay Howard Discusses PULSE Play
Miami Beach and Collecting Art in the Tumblr Era." Complex Magazine. 18
November 2014. WebWe spoke to Howard about trends in new media, establishing PULSE Play, and what collectors interested in digital art should consider before
buying.
Courtesy of Zhulong Gallery via PULSE Contemporary Art Fair.
How did you first become engaged in new media and emerging art platforms?
I started, actually on Tumblr, in 2009 collecting materials associated with digital art. I used the Tumblr as a research blog. From that point, I started
getting invitations from galleries to start curating exhibitions, and building relations with artists and collectors. I ran a space called 319 Scholes for
four years, where I brought in international artists and curators to organize exhibitions. Basically, we gave net artists a physical space to house
their works.
After about four years, I saw that there was a real need to create a market around digital art, and around that time Phillips began thinking on the
same wave length—they reached out to me about curating their first digital art auction, which took place last October. That was organized, also,
with Tumblr. We brought 20 artists specializing in digital art to market for the first time in an auction house. It was so successful that we did it
again in London in July of this year, with Phillips and Tumblr both as partners.
How did end up working on PULSE Play?
I had an opportunity to work with Tiana [Webb Evans], who is now working with PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, at Phillips. So, when she reached
out to me about the PULSE Play program, I thought it was a really interesting way to continue the conversation about, and advocacy for, digital art
that I’ve been doing for the last five years.
What are some of the challenges of changing perceptions of the art market? Is there resistance?
I was nervous that there was going to be resistance, but what I actually found is that it was embraced, especially with the auction being at Phillips.
The collectors they have are really curious about contemporary art. Digital art is really the most contemporary art. They had a lot of questions
about how you collect something that is immaterial, or how you collect a website, a GIF, or a video, and then how you display that in the home.
There are a lot of questions to unpack, and I find that collectors are actually interested in exploring those solutions. Certainly, artists are. I would
say that even more than curators, dealers, and institutions, artists are the ones who are innovating new monetization models and new display
models.
16Courtesy of Galerie Kleindienst via PULSE Contemporary Art Fair.
When I look at the Play prospectus I notice incredibly short
“
timeframes for the selections. Do you think that, in part, this is
a reaction to how lengthy traditional video art has become?
What was your process for vetting submissions? DIGITAL ART IS REALLY THE MOST CONTEMPORARY ART.
For the selections for Play, I watched about 40 submissions in total.
Some of them were 25 minutes long, and some were, as you’ve seen, 50 seconds or one minute. I found that the ones that resonated with me were
the shorter ones. I was watching with an open mind, and I selected things that were responding to this idea of an increasing absorption of data, an
oversaturation, and the idea of noise. These pieces either resist the idea of noise, transform it, or surrender to the overwhelming input of
contemporary culture. These just happened to be shorter ones, but each looks at the idea from a different perspective.
How do the artists you’ve chosen follow on the idea of noise, and what other storylines connect the work you’re exhibiting for Play?
I really felt like these works were the most contemporary of the group, and that they were really speaking to that idea of noise. When people talk
about digital they don’t really think of it as being handmade, but there felt like there was something in all these works for Play that had a strong
identity, visually and conceptually that felt so tied to the artist, as if no one else could have made that particular work. That was something I was
really drawn to, either there were certain details, certain angles, or certain styles that were just so particular to each individual artist that I was
really interested in those details. Overall, I saw they were telling this story about oversaturation and how the repetition of information created
these patterns and that we could create our own meaning within them.
Miami has blossomed to be so bustling that there is simply quite a lot of noise during the week of the fairs. How does something like this,
and moving PULSE to the beach and tightening its scope, work in context and also in elongating the experience outside of the tent?
One of the amazing things that Helen Toomer [PULSE’s director] is doing is making the fair 365. It’s really about year-round programing, and I think
that is the direction she wants to move toward. She also has the vision to partner with Tumblr. All of these pieces will be exhibited at the fair, but
also exist online so people from all over the world can connect with the work. It is a really visionary move for PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, to
bring it outside of the fair and put it online.
Obviously you’ve been working with Tumblr for some time. What is your gut feeling about the platform, specifically for art? There are all
sorts of emerging platforms, you could also, for example, do something with Snap Chat or Instagram video.
I love the Tumblr platform. It just has the largest community of artists on the Internet, and it has grown incredibly to include arts organizations and
institutions. There is an incredible buzz on the platform. One of the things about Tumblr is that you can use the tools available, but also go into the
code and make it really personal with your themes. You can basically use Tumblr as a medium. That potential is built into the platform. I see a lot of
17creative potential and I see that a lot of artists are inspired by it. I’m also really interested in the network that exists there and the quality of the
artwork that is on Tumblr already.
Courtesy of Zhulong Gallery via PULSE Contemporary Art Fair.
What are some great examples of Tumblr as a medium?
“
My favorite is Hyper Geography by Joe Hamilton. The piece is an
ongoing collage of images from the natural realm that he has
developed on Tumblr and that evolve as you scroll down the page.
ALL OF THESE PIECES WILL BE EXHIBITED AT THE FAIR, BUT ALSO EXIST
There are a lot of curators using Tumblr as a research platform, and
then it simultaneously becomes an exhibition space as well. I think
ONLINE SO PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD CAN CONNECT WITH THE
that is a really innovative way to use it. WORK. IT IS A REALLY VISIONARY MOVE FOR PULSE CONTEMPORARY ART
FAIR, TO BRING IT OUTSIDE OF THE FAIR AND PUT IT ONLINE.
Finally, if I’m interested in buying digital art what are some key
elements to consider?
One of the really important things for digital art is to look at the artist’s online presence. I’d say that artists who are engaging with digital media are
really interested in the social network as well. You can learn a lot though how the artists represents themselves that way, as much as you can in
more polished gallery exhibitions because I think we are really moving toward a time where works become even more conceptual and spread
across even more platforms. The concepts that artists are incubating in platforms like Tumblr are evolving into their gallery exhibitions and works
that will be for sale.
It is important to think about the type of hardware, especially if you are thinking about collecting video art, or websites. A lot of artists will have
very specific desires for how the work is presented. Many artists want really thin bezels on the screens, and really limited corporate branding, so it
doesn’t distract from what’s on the screen. They have certain installation ideas about the cords. Some artists want to hide the cords, others want the
cords highlighted. It is important to be in dialogue with the artist or dealer about different modes for installation.
I would also say that, for the last 20 years, net art has primarily been supported by non-profit institutions and universities. An institution such as
Rhizome at the New Museum has been an incredible advocate and supporter of emerging digital art throughout that time, and now for grants too.
They have a blog where they update constantly about digital artists.
Reading and keeping in touch with trends, as well as being aware of the historical context for the work and supporting institutions, is really important.
1819 Griffin, Jonathan. "Raster Raster: Aran Cravey, Los Angeles. 22 Feburary - 12 April." Art Review. May 2014
20
NY CULTURE
Auction House Enters the Digital Age
Phillips's First Digital-Art Auction Will Include a YouTube Video, Digital Files
By JENNIFER MALONEY
Updated Sept. 23, 2013 2:56 p.m. ET
The brick-and-mortar auction house Phillips is going down the rabbit hole of digital art.
At its first-ever digital-art auction on Oct. 10, Phillips will offer up, among other things,
a website, a YouTube video and digital files that could be displayed on a range of
devices at the discretion of the buyer, from smartphones to wall-mounted screens.
The auction's organizers, Phillips and the
blogging service Tumblr, say they've had
to tackle unusual logistical questions as
they prepare to sell works that, in many
cases, live online—and will continue to
exist there, even after they are
purchased.
Some of the pieces come with
stipulations. For example, artist Rafaël
'Plur Piece' by Alexandra Gorczynski Courtesy of
Alexandra Gorczynski and Transfer Gallery Rozendaal's website, ifnoyes.com, must
be kept visible to the public, and the
owner must renew the domain
registration annually.
Meanwhile, Phillips must take into
account the formula that Petra Cortright
uses to price her webcam videos. The
value of each one is tied to the number of
people who have viewed it on YouTube.
Addie Wagenknecht's "Asymmetric Love Number 2" Her video, "RGB,D-LAY," which shows
Courtesy of the artist
separated red, yellow, green and blue
images of the artist pulling her hair above
her head, was priced at $1,409.75
Sunday, with 5,639 views.
The sale, which will allow in-person and
online bidding, will feature artists who
already have made a name for
themselves as well as those who have
cultivated followings on Tumblr or
Brenna Murphy's "Liquid Transistor Resonancy YouTube but haven't yet tapped into the
Valley" Courtesy of American Medium
mainstream art market.
While Phillips and other galleries have showcased digital works, this experiment by
21
Maloney, Jennifer. "Auction House Enters the Digital Age." The Wall
Street Journal. 23 September 2013. Webone of New York's top auction houses
signals the growing interest of
mainstream collectors in digital art. In a
bid to capture the attention of young
collectors or established ones exploring
new media for the first time, the 20 works
on offer are priced between $1,400 and
$18,000. The auction proceeds will
benefit the artists and the nonprofit
Clement Valla's "Postcards From Google Earth" organization Rhizome, which
Courtesy of the artist
commissions digital artists and archives
digital art. Phillips will not take a cut.
"At one point, digital art was a sort of niche," said Michael Connor, editor and curator
of Rhizome. "But it is now so ubiquitous, it has thoroughly invaded the contemporary
art landscape. It is also pushing contemporary art in new directions."
Online bidding begins on Oct. 1, and will be suspended shortly before the live auction
begins at Phillips' Midtown location on the evening of Oct. 10. Once the live auction
begins, buyers may place bids in person or by phone.
Lindsay Howard, the auction's curator, used a broad definition of digital art to include
works by artists inspired by the inner workings of computers or the Internet, as well as
those who use the web as a distribution platform. Some of the works are static
images, while others morph on their own, or change in response to input from the
viewer. Still others are physical objects created or inspired by technology.
Digital artists already are commanding
significant prices and attention from the
contemporary-art world. An untitled
inkjet-printer painting by Wade Guyton
fetched $1.1 million at Christie's in
February. Cory Arcangel, whose work
includes computer-generated projects,
video, music composition and sculpture,
had a solo show at the Whitney Museum
Petra Cortright's "Webcam Video File" Courtesy of the of American Art in 2011.
artist and Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles
Others have built their audiences online
through sites such as Tumblr, which has become a popular platform for artists to
present their work. Some are even using Tumblr as their medium of choice, said Annie
Werner, Tumblr's arts evangelist.
They include Joe Hamilton, who created a collage called "Hyper Geography" through
a series of Tumblr posts. A video version of "Hyper Geography" will be offered in the
auction.
22TRANSFER Gallery Attempts To Crack The Digital Art
Dilemma
By Julia Kaganskiy — Mar 27 2013
Digital art, and in particular Net Art, has long had a chip on its shoulder. There’s simply no market for this kind
of immaterial, internet-based work. Like most media online—be it music, film, books, or pricey software
packages—nobody wants to pay for it. Countless artists, curators, and galleries have experimented with the
salability of digital work - some have been successful, othrs less so. But on the whole, the problem still
persists, plaguing the community of artists making and sharing their work on the web.
23
Kaganskiy, Julia. "TRANSFER Gallery Attempts To Crack The Digital Art
Dilemma." The Creators Project. 27 March 2013. WebTransfer, a new gallery that opened in East Williamsburg last weekend, aims to create a space for artists
working online to experiment with making and selling physical work. In doing so, co-owners Kelani Nichole
and Jereme Mongeon, are encouraging a young group of artists who primarily work online to re-connect with
their roots in drawing, painting, sculpture or photography and giving them four blank walls within which they
can literally “transfer” their artistic practice back into a physical context.
Their first show, “Truisms”, a solo show from new media artist Alexandra Gorczynski, sees a return to
Gorczynski’s painterly past. Its main centerpiece is a mural of a Mac desktop background and stacked with
“files” of her images. The prints themselves are collage-based works riddled with computer iconography and
the painterly gesture of Photoshop. Also accompanying the show is a limited edition artist book that was sold
ahead of the show’s opening to raise money for its production costs, getting the community to support the
exhibition much like it would on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter.
Gorczynski painting her Mac desktop mural at Transfer.
24The finished mural.
The opportunity for this kind of experimentation may prove a crucial one—not only for the creative, aesthetic,
and conceptual development of the artists involved, but also in terms of cracking the question of how best to
support and sustain this creative practice. At the end of the day, the fact still holds that people are far more
willing to pay for tangible objects than they are for jpeg files. The ability to package immaterial or ephemeral
work into salable components is a crucial question for digital art to crack—we need only to look at
performance art to see this notion reinforced.
It’s still early days for Transfer, but the gallery shows promise. We spoke with Kelani Nichole, the gallery’s co-
founder and curator, about her vision and goals for the space.
The Creators Project: Why did you decide to start Transfer?
Kelani Nichole: Transfer was born out of a desire to continue a line of inquiry that developed over the course
of my independent curatorial career in Philadelphia. Specifically: I began to investigate the ways in which
certain bodies of ‘New Media’ work are crossing the boundaries of physical and digital space.
25Having recently relocated to NYC, I didn’t yet have access to a local space to realize curatorial projects. My
experience with little berlin in Philadelphia gave me a solid foundation for what it takes to maintain a space.
So as I started to look around and found I could acquire maybe 600 or 700 square feet within a budget my
partnership and day job can support, well, that was a pleasant surprise.
But the real driving factor to take the plunge and acquire some walls for a year was a desire to work more
intimately with artists one-on-one, through a series of solo shows. I wanted to explore how access to an
exhibition space without the constraints of a typical institutional model might help deepen and extend a body
of work consisting primarily of computer-based practices.
A diptych from “Truisms.”
How did you arrive at your particular curatorial focus?
The focus of our exhibition calendar in this first year at Transfer is definitely an evolution of >get >put which
was my most recent independent curatorial project. That show was the culmination of a year and a half of
research, collaboration, and synthesis among a group of six artists.
26My current focus is to invest in and engage with the community of artists working with rich computer-based
practices—artists who are exploring the friction between digital practice and its physical instantiation—by
developing solo and duo shows within our walls. Previous collaborators seemed a natural place to start with
Transfer, specifically A Bill Miller and Alexandra Gorczynski, as I have watched their work evolve and have
an established a close working relationship with them both.
On being a “so-called net.art gallery”: there are various labels loosely attached to this networked group of
artists who exhibit actively online and participate in creative exchange on the Internet – Net.art, New
Aesthetic, New Media, Glitch, etc. Transfer feels limited by any one of these labels but its clear that in the
sum total of these practitioners lies some significant momentum.
One of Gorczynski’s ‘Wacom Tablet Paintings.’
What is it about taking art from the digital to the physical space that appeals to you? Is there an
implicit challenge in that “transfer” that excites you?
Through the feedback I received from ‘>get >put’ it became apparent that space is one of the most essential
needs that practicing artists are seeking—this has always been the case to be sure, but somehow the
27urgency to create a physical space for artists working with digital practices was too much to ignore. The
inaccessibility of physical space is something that often drives a body of work further into digital space where
audience and storage space is vast and negligible in cost.
The hope with Transfer is that when backed by a platform of support these artists can find a broader, “away
from keyboard” audience, engage further with the more physical (or if you prefer, “traditional”) side of their
practices, and expand and explore the relationship between their digital and physical work in new ways.
Why do you think it’s important for digital artists to have a space to experiment with making physical
work?
Audience and encounter are some of the most essential experiences that help develop an artist’s body of
work. With the vast connectivity and access of the internet, practices have adapted to be consumable within
the browser, to be an integral part of the stream and feed of the network. These practices are often rooted in
more traditional training, yet because of demand and access, artists invest in digital, distributed mediums as
opposed to engaging physically with their painterly or drawing or sculptural or performative backgrounds. If
you have eight shows online in a year and not a single one is in a physical gallery space, why would you
invest in material work?
I’m of the opinion that a body of work transcends its physical manifestation. I’m interested in artists who want
to explore what happens as they position their computer-based practices in a physical encounter with the
audience—in a way that isn’t prescribed upon by the institution or the network. This physical engagement is
what I think is essential in the idea of our exhibition space.
28The limited edition artist book that Transfer sold to raise money for “Truisms.”
You’ve developed a unique monetary model with Transfer. Why do you think a mixture of community
supported pre-sales and traditional gallery sales is proving an effective approach?
Its not proven yet! But the success of platforms such as Kickstarter to fund the arts is undeniable. Much of
this is due to the scale of that platform’s audience, but when it comes down to it, people will support work they
believe in if the price is affordable and the transaction is easy.
A few of the artists we’re working with have done personal fundraising for their work, and even dabbled with
sales online. We want to help further and formalize those efforts in relationship to our space, and the hope my
partner and I have is that with our professional skillset to back the platform we can find new footing for moving
the funding model to the front of the transactional funnel—a more evolved patronage model if you will, where
acquisition of smaller collection items enables larger exploration within the gallery walls. We hope it gives
artists a means to deepen their practice, and new audiences a way to broaden (or start) their personal
collections.
29Are you willing to reveal how successful sales have been? Even in abstract terms?
So far, we’ve covered the production costs of our first show, and there’s enough coming in for the artist to get
a place here in NYC. But aside from the financial gain for the artist, the opportunity to produce a solo
exhibition and the new connections and exposure her practice is receiving are the most important measures
of success in our eyes. This is work we believe in and want to see it grow and develop.
What’s been the most surprising thing about the reaction to this first show?
The opening night was surreal. I didn’t take a single picture because every time I looked around the room I
was just overwhelmed with joy at the energy, enthusiasm, and support of the community of people invested in
new media practice here in NYC. There were art stars, internet figures extraordinaire, writers, critics, people
working in the arts as their second job (like us), old and young new media practitioners, collectors, co-
workers, arts tech community members and collaborators… everyone seemed to have a mutual stake in
furthering this conversation. The most surprising part of it all is that this thing I felt urgency to create is
aligning to meet a real need that exists in the artworld right now.
30You can also read
