The Museum of Hyperformalism, hosted by PiRats Arts Management is proud to present
Josina Burgess, Werner Kurosawa and Juria Yoshikawa
Opening reception:
1PM SLT . 22h00 Fr, 8PM Utc
Friday, November 6, 2009
Where:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/PiRats%20Art%20Network/128/124/29
Curator's Statement:
Combining these particular artists together is to form a "chord", a resonant combination of the projects of each of these individual artists to form an impression of three unique branches of Hyperformalist expression in the MMO of SL.
Each of these installations represents a singular view of formalist abstraction in the virtual hypermedium. The collection of works share both site specificity and dialogic characteristics as expressed in the unique conditions of the virtual space. In the material space, contemporary site specificity has morphed from a critique of the segregated gallery and museum space to emphasis on a conceptual location or vector. Virtual site specificity has unique characteristics in its relationship to the traditional understanding of time and space. The virtual condition compresses time so that all locations are one click away and therefore it takes almost no time to go from virtual location to location. Time as a factor in transit from experience to experience has been folded into space and rendered moot.
The works in this exhibition are dialogic in that they encourage a dialog with the visitor, but an abstract dialog unlike human language, foregrounding the disembodied viewers' relationship to the virtual condition. This dialog is brought about by the literal involvement of the visitor who is required to be an active participant in the work to experience it. The participant is necessary to complete the works and all the works in this exhibition are deeply centered on the involvement of the visitor. And while the works can be viewed passively from a single point perspective as in cinema, this is only a fraction of their intended potential, which is defined by the involvement of the viewer.
The resulting dialog is of a distinctly non-anthropocentric quality. The virtual artifacts in this exhibition speak to the alien conditions outside of the physical gravity world and offer another set of experiences that enter the mind of the viewer from a non-verbal and being level entry point. While this work is all in relationship to the viewer, it is not about the viewer, but about a sense of wonder possible only in this continuum.
The Artists:
Josina Burgess is Dutch born jazz vocalist, fashion designer, painter and virtual theatrical director. Her work in this exhibition makes me think of how the microscopic is often similar to the macroscopic. The volumes in her exhibition are deeply textural abstract assemblies that are constantly in motion seemingly transferring energies from globular cluster to globular cluster. These could be new galaxies forming or molecules in the process of transmutation. Strangely enough, since Josina is a musician, her offering in this show is silent, but each assembly sings a unique visual and spacial music of its own. Each grouping establishing a new visual syntax distinct from the others, each soothing, sublime and ineffable.
Werner Kurosawa is Belgian born architect and fine artist known for work with technology inside and outside of the virtual world. Werner's assemblies are angular and crystalline, chaotically animated, monochromatic platonic solids. There are two main works in this exhibition, the first of which is a swarm of chrome solids that is controlled through a series of clickable objects on the observation deck of the exhibition. These user interface items invite the visitor to choose the frequency and dynamism of the swarming objects which wiggle and interweave in wondrous and seemingly random algorithmic patterns and while doing so produce sounds that seem to be the audio equivalent of the objects in space. Other works invite the viewer to sit on them and drag the viewers camera through a dizzying series of gyrations through the deliberately darkened exhibition area.
Juria Yoshikawa is an American born musician, fine artist and commercial art director, living in Japan. Juria's work in this exhibition is about the use of light and a riot of highly saturated colors and detailed graphic textures. Like Josina, Juria's work consists of coherent groupings of animated textured abstractions that are little universes unto themselves. Instead of darkening the whole exhibit space like Werner, Juria creates darkened spherical, tubular enclosures that barely contain the light shows within but present the visitor with an opportunity to walk through the work in a pre-determined way mediated by geometry. The work here also has an audio dimension, triggered by the presence of the avatar small bits of music and utterances bring this work closest to the borderline of anthropocentrism. The effect of these kinds of sound samples triggered by the visitor walking through, creates a unique irreproducible accompaniment for each visit.
