Barbara Agreste

Metamorphose

We are presently in the midst of an artistic uprising. The Metamorphose exhibition speaks for itself when conveying that the art world is quickly being transformed by a new media generation. The digital world is taking form and moving rapidly by way of computer, television, radio, phone and the Internet. New Media art is a genre that emerged in the 1960s with the development of new technologies, and encompasses artworks created with these technologies including: digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics and art as biotechnology.

Artists are reinterpreting, reinventing, and redefining not only what it means, but what it takes to be an artist in this advanced environment. With this unbridled expansion of creative output, many artists have a way of creating art that is effortlessly shared with its audience by digital means. This exhibition is an examination of the strange and eerie most often associated with that of Surrealism and is also apparent throughout New Media art. The work in Metamorphose represents a minute segment of New Media art that emphasizes the human presence either in its whole, or fragmented as a conceptual theme.

Including national and internationally known artists in this exhibition stresses the importance of bringing more acclaimed work to the community for cultural proposes. Sound artists, Ed Osborn and Mark Snyder, accentuate the eerie feelings of Surrealism while giving the audience a more complete sensory experience when viewing the exhibition. Videos by Barbara Agreste exemplify the power of sound with moving picture combined to create a complete conceptual design. Digital collage artists, Matt Manley and Osvaldo Gonzalez, convey a wide array of possibilities mixing traditional media with digital image to produce a truly unique work of art. Interactive sculpture collaborated by David Otis and Ricardo de Sousa Costa allows its audience to physically engage with the piece to demonstrate the significance of human involvement in art, and lastly web art by Ben Benjamin illustrates the complexity and interconnectedness that the internet provides to the art world.

Metamorphoses new media artworks challenge expectations and expand our understanding of art. The eight artists in this installation at the South Haven Center for the Arts are major contributors to this new media generation seeking this change of perception from their viewers.

Melissa Warner-Talcott, Curator

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