3 posts tagged “gallery”
SECOR GALLERY PRESENTS EXHIBITION OF DIGITAL & INSTALLATION ART
Exhibition Features Toledo Area Artists: Fred Leighton and Fontana
February 7th marked the opening of an exhibit of new artworks at The Secor Gallery located at 425 Jefferson Avenue Toledo, Ohio, 43604, across from the newly constructed Lucas County Arena. The exhibition features the artworks of artists Fred Leighton and the collaborative husband-wife team of Anthony and Sandra Fontana, simply called Fontana. The opening reception was held on Saturday, February 7th from 6-9pm. On display until Saturday, February 21st, this show features installation art, machinima animation, and digital prints. (Check this blog again for the full machinima).
The Secret of Bigfoot Pass
In The Secret of Bigfoot Pass, Fred Leighton has created a large cube comprised of plexiglass, fiber and computer-controlled LED lights along with several digital 3D analygraphic printed images. The title of the work refers to the 1976 TV show and paperback of the same name featuring the Six Million Dollar Man character, Steve Austin. In the story, the legend of Sasquatch is explained as a cyborg created by Alien explorers. Half-man, half-machine himself, Steve Austin confronts Bigfoot and the extra-terrestrials. In this group of works, the artists explores the significance of these characters and the popularity of the themes and subject matter in mid 1970s America, a fascination that continues to today.
Fred Leighton was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1965. He holds a BA from The University of Michigan where he majored in History of Art and an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design where he studied Interactive Design and Game Development. As Developer and Producer, Leighton has been recognized by HOW, PRINT, WIRED, and Mac Art & Design for his creativity in developing interactive media projects for subjects including artists Rev. Howard Finster and Joe Coleman. Leighton uses physical computing, interactive installation, digital images and sound, online interactivity, and game design to create interactive artworks. Fred Leighton is currently an Instructor in Visual Communications Technology at Bowling Green State University.
We Are Avatars
Since 2005, Fontana has been investigating virtual identities in online social platforms, their economies, and the ways in which relationships are represented in digital forms. In this body of work the Fontana's collaborative search for distinct ways of documenting their avatar's experiences and memories can be seen through blended reality installations, altered avatar representations, and machinima animations. Through their artworks, Fontana's search begins with their digital documentation of their daily lives on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, extends through their alternate, imagined, and "real" personas in virtual worlds such as Second Life, and burgeons forth into a space where viewers are able to question the paradox: "Is the virtual real?"
Anthony Fontana has been exhibiting artworks in and about online virtual worlds since 2005 and began creating machinima animaitons using the virtual world of Second Life in 2007 as a way to tell stories connected to humans, yet beyond the experiences of one's own body. He earned an MFA in Painting from Northern Illinois University in 2004 and a BFA in painting from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 2001. Sandra Fontana has worked as a professional photographer and homemaker for the last 7 years. She has toured the country shooting beauty pageants, school portraits, and often using her own children as subjects. Her favorite subject has always been herself, shooting several hundred self-portraits over the last decade. In 2001, Sandra earned a BFA in Photography from the Columbus College of Art and Design.
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If you would like to schedule a visit to the gallery or need more information about the exhibition or artists please contact Fred Leighton at fred@artsdigital.com, visit www.ArtsDigital.com, or www.AnthonyFontana.com.
Next week my solo exhibition at the Heldscalla Foundation in Second Life will open. Join us Thursday May 17th, at 9pm for the opening reception at this SLURL. There will be an opening at 9pm BST to kick things off and another at 9pm EST. The final event of the night will be at 9pm PDT or Second Life time.
Here is the show statement:
Fontana 2.0 is an exhibition of new works that focus on the web 2.0 ideology of socially motivated peer production and recontextualization of the artist himself through previous works. "As an artist, I am interested in the sequential narratives of comics, digitally manipulated imagery, the aesthetics of visual culture, and how little visual information we need to construct compelling narratives. Most of my work has focused on symbols of cartoon expression, incorporating themes of violence, sexual fetishism, gaming, and both popular and subculture."
ReCon(Text) #2
Using elements from Anthony's previous works over the past two years,
this interactive work calls for audience participation in two ways.
First, gallery goers may interact with the control panel located on the
gallery floor to change the images along the left wall. In doing so,
many variant compositions emerge. Audience members are encouraged to
alt-zoom-in and take screenshots of the compositions they create then
upload and add them to the animated slide shows off to each side. (Do
so by crtl-dragging the screenshot texture over the slide show prim.)
"My hope is to engage the audience through collaborative creation of
new compositions and narratives. Essentially, I am releasing the
elements found in this work through a Creative Commons Sampling License. Over
the course of the show and with the help of Second Life residents, I
would like to see each slide player evolve into its own stand alone
work."
YouToo
The other set of works in this exhibition explore the modes, speed, and
content of information transfer in the Web 2.0 era. The cornerstone of
this series is the image titled "YouToo".
"Mona Lisa represents 500 years of critical discourse on one singular
work of art. I am very interested in the rate at which society must
process and evaluate new media. Does meaning emerge through the
combination of transient images, and if so, when does one stop to
contemplate and understand that meaning?"
These are a few images from my piece in the BGSU Faculty Show at the Dorthy Uber Brian Gallery.
"ReCon(Text)" is essentially an interactive wall comic. Using cut out panels, figures, and word balloons taken from my upcoming original graphic novel, THE DOGS, the audience is free to juxtapose the images in any order or direction on the wall. Behind the cutouts I have economically drawn the logo for the book. This has created new narratives that examine each element from a new perspective. Charming, melodramatic scenes become twisted sexually explicit jokes. Characters are free to confront themselves again and again.
Surveying new ways to present and recontextualize the work from my book, ReCon(Text) aims to be the first of several pieces I have planned. Comics artists have traditionally shown the pages from a book in their original format, often in linear order, when shown at art galleries. Through this series of experiments I hope to deconstruct the conventional nature of comic reading and utilize the gallery setting as a device for heterodoxical approaches to already existing narratives.
More experimental approaches to "Innovating the Strip" will be explored in my upcoming class at BGSU by the same name:
Innovating the Comic Strip involves 2D studio assignments in various media with emphasis on experimentation in the static sequential narratives of a comic strip format. Special focus will be placed on narrative interpretation, content development, and alternative display. Students will investigate and explore the exploding community of online comics, their aesthetics, and examine their functionality as art. Students will innovate the strip free from the constraints imposed by outdated restrictions. Demonstrations will include: How to (de)construct a traditional comic strip, How to start an internet comic, How to develop meaning through narrative comic strip communication, Techniques for optimal impact of various media in unconventional displays, and How to develop prolonged study of formal and conceptual thematic comic strip inventions. Lectures will include: Investigating traditional restrictions, Communicating information and instruction, The value of internet comics, and Collaborative strips and interactive comics.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course the student will be able to:
- Create non-traditional comic strip narratives utilizing various innovation and experimentation strategies
- Effectively communicate and design meaningful sequential narratives using various 2D media and the comic strip
- Focus on thematic development for prolonged study
- Show increased analytical and visual sensitivity, creativity, and critical awareness of the comic strip format and the role that it plays in the creation of meaning and narrative.
Course Content:
This class will address:
- The history and theoretical principles applicable to inventing non-traditional comic strip structures.
- Demonstrating the tools, skills and software to design and construct non-traditional comic strips.
- Media compatibility and archival issues arising from the use of non-traditional comic strip display innovations.
- The completion of 4 major projects, 1 utilizing site specific display for informational or instructional communication, 2 based on innovating traditional strip conventions in a non-traditional display, and the fourth, an ongoing semester long assignment developing creation strategies/media in an internet setting will form the capstone project
