2022 SEASON
Smoke & Mirrors
An installation by Lynn Richardson
ON VIEW
February 4 - 27
Lynn’s previous work examined the relationship between governments and corporations, and the collateral effects of this association on our physical environment.
Smoke & Mirrors continues to focus on the complexities of this affiliation and its impact on the natural world. Using colonialism as a metaphor for the potential exploitation of the Arctic, Lynn’s work, cloaked in floral designs, questions this changing landscape. Creating decorative work exemplifies the plentiful wealth potentially acquired from land exploitation.
Smoke & Mirrors will evolve from two-dimensional wall and floor installed pieces to a kinetic three-dimensional sculptural installation, better representing the fluidity of nature.
ECHO LAND
An installation from the MassArt Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM)
ON VIEW
APRIL 1 - MAY 22
ECHO LAND investigates the relationship between sound and pattern with regards to the natural phenomena of the echo. This investigation takes place through the use of repetitive forms in light, sound, and video projection. The installation is conceptualized and executed by a collective of artists from SIM—Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The SIM program supports transformative, interdisciplinary artistic practices through collaboration and self-governance.
Participating Artists: Henry Bamford, Pao Chutijirawong, Kristina Rea, Hugh Schatz-Allison, Kyra Stupik, Jin Yao
THREADS OF ASSUMPTION
an interactive installation and performance by artists Maria Finkelmeier, Sofie Hodara, U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, & Martha Rettig
ON VIEW
JUNE 3 - JULY 24
Threads of Assumption responds to real stories about experienced bias, gathered on a virtual, anonymous conversation platform and analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI). The resulting exhibition is a visual, sonic, and tactile representation of human truths and errors. The project asks us to reconsider our assumptions surrounding bias and what we accept as normal. How can we expect machines to extract meaning from what we don’t yet understand?
Data was collected from 22 sourced conversations. Each conversation was analyzed for emotional content and thematic language and transformed, by AI, into datasets. As artists, the concept of weaving this rigid data and the human experience became essential at every turn, similar to the way tactile weavings are made, with a tense warp and threaded weft.
The exhibition is centered around an interactive, room-scale loom. The loom is surrounded by our artistic interpretations of the data, in the form of hanging weavings, video projections, and recordings of spoken word poetry and musical compositions.
The data we received did not teach us anything new. It simply reinforced our society’s acceptance of harmful structures and individual’s perpetuation of rigid assumptions.
The work premiered at the Goethe Institute, Boston’s Studio 170 in June 2021 and was made possible (in part) by a Live Arts Boston grant from The Boston Foundation. Additional thanks to Bianca Mauro of BRM Production Management, J. Cottle, The Loop Lab, Aram Boghosian, Adam DeTour, and Gabi Ammirato.
Special thank you to our 44 participants, including: Annie Lundsten, Bianca Mauro, Brian Calhoon, Jasmine Lellock, Kendall Rhymer, Ksenija Komljenovic, Lindsay Akens, Lisa Daria Kennedy, Lydia Lucas, Maria Servellon, Natalie Gray, Sheryl Pace, Susan Hodara, Ulrike Rettig, and Wendy Richmond.
HAUS PARTY
Boston-based glitch artist Allison Tanenhaus teams up with a multidisciplinary mélange of outside-the-box creatives—sculptors, painters, video artists, electronic musicians, and installation artists—awash in vivid colors, optical illusions, repurposed materials…and cats.
ON VIEW AUGUST 5 - SEPTEMBER 25
Artists:
Allison Tanenhaus with visual artists Vidumami, DebStep, J. Bagist, Paige Mazurek, Ben K. Foley, Rudolf Lingens, Sabato Visconti, tvHat, featuring music by The Square Root of Negative Two (Robin Amos + Blaik Ripton), Violet Nox, Alicia Walter, Maria Finkelmeier, Sam Correa, Joses, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Nelson
Live performances by:
Violet Nox, NXOR x Lifting Bodies, Moondrawn, 4FTR HR
EXPERIMENTS IN AUGMENTED REALITY
Augmented reality installations by
John Craig Freeman and Michael Lewy
ON VIEW OCTOBER 7 - NOVEMBER 27
CLIMATE CHANGE MIGRATION STORIES
Augmented reality installation by John Craig Freeman
Climate Change Migration Stories is an augmented reality public art project designed for exhibition in public squares and other publicly accessible spaces. People encounter the project by way of wayfinding signage placed at the physical location, with information and instructions about how to experience the augmented reality content. Users use common mobile phones to guide themselves on a walking tour through a series of virtual scenes. The experiences consist of world scale, photorealistic scans created on location in and around the U.S./Mexico border.
John Craig Freeman is a public artist with over twenty years of experience using emergent technologies to produce largescale public work at sites where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals in local communities. His work seeks to expand the notion of public by exploring how digital networked technology is transforming our sense of place.
BETA 64
Augmented reality installation by Michael Lewy
Inspired by the 1965 film Alphaville and the time machine from Je t'aime Je t'aime. Lewy has created a multi-episodic augmented reality narrative. Beta 64 tells the story of an alien supercomputer who has taken over and banished all art and poetry and turned all the artists into monsters.
(The Voice of Beta 64 is kindly provided by Matthew Battles, Hazel Lewy, Richard Nash, Liz Nofziger, Richard Saja, Jessamyn West) with music created by Nsputnik
Michael Lewy is an artist based in Boston. He works in a variety of media, including augmented reality, virtual reality, photography, and video. He is the author of Chart Sensation, a book of powerpoint charts, and has shown at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, the Pacific Film Archives and Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston.
What is “augmented reality”?
Augmented reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time. AR users experience a real-world environment with generated perceptual information overlaid on top of it.
How to experience augmented reality:
Install the HOVERLAY app on your mobile device and tune into an artist’s channel to see content.
OR
Scan the artist’s QR code at each access point and follow instructions to install the Hoverlay camera browser app on your mobile device.
THEN
Use the Hoverlay app to explore the interactive installations at access points in downtown North Adams.
Access points will be unveiled at the show opening reception October 7th!