November 2011

CAM Raleigh in Raleigh, NC, Offers 3rd Installment in Emerging Artists Series

The CAM Raleigh in Raleigh, NC, will present, ID:ENTITY SELF : PERCEPTION + REALITY, a group exhibition of cutting-edge interactive art works by artists and faculty at North Carolina State University, on view in the Independent Weekly Gallery, from Nov. 18 through Feb. 13, 2012. A reception will be held on Nov. 18, from 6-9pm.

This exhibition is the third installment of the Emerging Artists Series featuring a group exhibition by the following artists, faculty, and students affiliated with the North Carolina State University College of Design, Department of Art+Design, and the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Ph.D. program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences: Kevin Brock, Lee Cherry, Patrick FitzGerald, McArthur Freeman, II, David Gruber, David Millsaps, Cecilia Mouat, Carol Fountain Nix, David M Rieder, and Marc Russo.

ID:ENTITY is a group exhibition which explores the complex dichotomy between the public and private versions of “self.” Radical changes are emerging at the technical, cultural, and aesthetic intersections of contemporary life due to the speed and prevalence of digital media. ID:ENTITY investigates the vicissitudes which occur across the boundaries of self and world.

“I am thrilled to support innovative thinking about art, technology, and design. Our new home for contemporary art and design, CAM Raleigh, aligns with both the College of Design’s curriculum and the ambitions of the many artists and designers that we showcase,” said North Carolina State’s College of Design Dean Marvin J. Malecha, FAIA.

Artists featured in ID:ENTITY use a wide range of cutting-edge software technologies (including Microsoft’s Kinect) to create dynamic, interactive imagery, inspiring environments, and to engage viewers with sensory experiences. Interactive, thematic videos will be projected on the walls of the gallery, creating internal and external views. Visitors will experience large-scale interactive installations, short experimental films and digital sculpture. The exhibition brings to the center the ways in which identity is augmented, multiplied, and mashed-up by digital technologies. Most of the projects require user interaction, and many are projected on large surfaces, some angled, others textured.

Kate Shafer, Exhibitions Manager at CAM Raleigh, says, “The artists and designers in this exhibition are pioneers in new media arts. They repurpose familiar technologies to engage the visitor in unexpected ways. CAM Raleigh seeks to present the unexpected and to deliver on that mission- we are an ever changing experience like no museum.”

One featured work in ID:ENTITY that exemplifies the experimental dynamic nature of the exhibition is a four-screen installation by Marc Russo depicting The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In Russo’s re-imagining, the first horseman, Silence, prevents communication and censors thoughts and expression. Silence results in the second sign: Decay. The next sign is Consumption, relating to the mass consumption of our resources, which ultimately leads to our Death.

Making its museum premiere is David Gruber and David Rieder’s Tunnel Vision, a cybertextual interpretation of Mark Strand’s poem, The Tunnel. Strand’s poem dramatizes the fear and loathing that we feel as we confront a sense of the outsider within us. Gruber and Rieder’s interpretation of Strand’s poem uses a webcam with motion-tracking software to extend and allegorize the connection that a user feels with the technologized and externalized projection of the self on the screen – a self that is inextricably linked to the words from Strand’s poem. The work is a contribution to a type of experimental writing known as cybertext. Strand’s poem and a scholarly essay about their work will be displayed alongside this interactive work.
A number of the ID:ENTITY projects are based on open-source hacks of the Microsoft Kinect. Due to the ways in which the Kinect can identify human movements in a three-dimensional space, these works will dramatize the extent to which the assumed boundaries dividing self and world are transgressed by digital technologies. Several new works by Patrick FitzGerald and Lee Cherry demonstrate the opportunities for experimentation introduced by the Kinect.

One more work making its museum debut is David Rieder and Kevin Brock’s Floating Signifiers, a Kinect-based exploration of embodied textuality. Rieder and Brock’s project uses the sensor’s depth-tracking capabilities to allow users to engage with a dynamic, three-dimensional textual space on a projected screen.

The exhibition is generously supported by North Carolina State University’s College of Design and NC State’s Art+Design Program. Additional supported is provided by the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Ph.D. program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

CAM Raleigh is the only museum in the region with a dedicated gallery for emerging artists and designers. Through exhibiting emerging artists whose work is still in progress and fresh from the studio, CAM Raleigh celebrates the diversity of artistic expression and places the artist at the center of the community. The museum supports early career contemporary artists in an atmosphere where they are encouraged to foster a cross-fertilization of ideas and dynamic interaction with visitors. Visitors from all walks of life will often have a chance to meet and exchange ideas with the artists celebrated in this series.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the center at 919/513-0946 or visit (http://camraleigh.org/).

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