About the Exhibition

November 6, 2008 – January 18, 2009

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (map)
4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.culturela.org/lamag/Home.html

Gallery Hours

Thursday – Sunday, 12 noon - 5 pm
(First Friday of the month, 12 noon – 9 pm)
(323) 644-6269
cadmag [AT] sbcglobal.net

DigitalEyes 2008 – 2009 is a mind-bending overview of new esthetic dimensions in computer visualization technology. The exhibition exists in both the real and virtual worlds, representing innovative and spectacular work by artists from artists from twenty-five countries, including Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and USA.

The central purpose of the exhibition is to:

• Expand awareness of people and nature;
• Illuminate the role digital media play in shaping, extending, and reflecting worldviews and cosmologies;
• Explore ecological, social, and political issues in imaginative and mind-bending ways;
• Foster respect, tolerance and empathy among people and nations.

 

The art and science of computer visualization is a ubiquitous force in shaping our daily lives. The medium of computer technology influences the news we watch, the education and entertainment we seek, our ability to explore other planets, to research and examine the micro-structure of our own bodies, to reshape the industries that drive our socio-political economy. Most significantly, it has improved the essence of our communication, influencing the content and esthetic nature of what we can share with one another.

This historic exhibition has the power to inspire a new generation in creating a better and more delightful world for all of us.

More than 80 professional volunteers were directly involved in selecting artwork featured in this show, representing independent, corporate, civic and non-profit enterprises associated with cutting-edge computer visualization in the art, science, research, education, information and entertainment industries. The list of credits is impressive. The majority of the jurors are independent artists themselves, who also teach at more than 40 major universities in the USA, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Portugal, France, Japan and Switzerland. This diversely connected group represents an altruistic infrastructure that is as much a part of the exhibition as the artwork itself, an innately networked body of people determined to reshape our worldviews through shared consciousness.

The artwork itself is not possible without an industrial infrastructure of artists, scientists, engineers, educators, and line workers of every kind. No doubt that is why the art world has been slow to recognize and value it as a new art form. Who owns the work? To what extent does the tool shape the work? Will it endure? Anyone can master a stick of charcoal, daub paint, or mold a lump of clay. No one person can use a computer to create a work of art, regardless of the degree of originality brought to bear in its creation. The computer is an inter-dependent millennial tool, built and distributed by cooperative groups, and used by the masses who can afford it to keep pace with the technological revolution.

The movement in computer art and technology is not about singularly advantaged art stars, self-employed or commissioned. It is about global consciousness, and essentially utopian. It is about the fabric of our society, one that wants the perks of an economically enfranchised middle class to be shared by all people. This movement will not be fully realized until people everywhere across the planet can connect and communicate with one another directly. This is a powerful dream that transcends nations, one that will enrich and change the essence of our esthetic and spiritual values.

Los Angeles ACM SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter is honored to present this exhibition as a significant continuing step in promoting our shared vision with the people of tomorrow. The art and science of creative visualization technology has changed the face of our world in a single generation, and it has changed the way we socialize as networked individuals.

ACM SIGGRAPH is proud to represent the worldwide society of computer graphics practitioners and enthusiasts who volunteer to make this happen in our time. People everywhere have begun to recognize that tooling the Digital Millennium is an instrument of radical social democracy, one that affords the optimistic hope of generating a stronger international community, and one that transcends physical boundaries of nation, space and time.

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) has the strongest history of representing emerging artists in the culturally diverse milieu of Southern California. With this groundbreaking show, LAMAG shoulders up as the first major civic institution in the City of Los Angeles to feature an international exhibition of computer art of relevance to the people of the City of Los Angeles. LAMAG Gallery Director Mark Steven Greenfield and Curator Scott Canty have long recognized the unique nature of the emergent body of artists working with in this pioneering medium, and were eager to support the groundswell in popular esthetic culture that it represents. This is the first exhibition to extend from their real world art gallery into the virtual world of online cyber-space, expanding the potential for what a regional institution represents in the global community.

Museum and Education Tours (MET) Program at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery serves a broad spectrum of our immediate community – adults, kids, tweens and teens – all eager to be part of an exciting future represented by the new convergence of a universal language in art and technology.

To book an MET Program for your group, contact:

Sara L. Cannon
Art Curator, Director, Museum Education and Tours Program
L.A. Municipal Art Gallery and Hollyhock House
(323) 644-6269