“Sequence: An Art + Technology Exhibition” at Touchstone Gallery
Touchstone's latest presents 44 artists in a showcase of technological uses in art, from 3D printed sculpture to digital paintings.
Any and all interested artists were invited to submit work for the latest exhibition organized by D.C.’s Touchstone Gallery, so long as the work was created with, or influenced by, technology.
A panel of three jurors then reviewed the submissions and whittled SEQUENCE: An Art + Technology Exhibition down to 31 pieces on display in the gallery show and an additional 13 works for a virtual exhibition.
In sum, 44 artists from 14 U.S. states, Japan, and the United Kingdom are represented in the show, selected by jurors Maleke Glee, director of art and programming at STABLE, Lauren Leving, curator at Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and Roddy Schrock, executive director of Eyebeam. SEQUENCE showcases a range of technological uses in art, from 3D printed sculpture, to digital paintings, to time-based media, to NFC-embedded mixed media.
“Technological developments have always presented a disruption to artmaking, and are rarely without scandal…. But like so many technological advances, from Photoshop to projectors to the iPad, what really matters is how the tool is used by the artist,” says Abbey Alison McClain, Touchstone’s executive director.
“The current technology most disrupting the art world is AI (artificial intelligence)…. SEQUENCE includes several pieces by artists [who] utilize AI as a way to enhance their artistic practice, rather than deleting the human artist from the process. We hope this exhibition can help gallery visitors expand on how they think about art and technology.”
Notable works in the exhibition include:
Lisa Strata by Pennsylvania artist Drew Zimmerman, a 22-minute digital video presented as a musical satire of gender roles based on classic plays by Aristophanes, with stop-motion animation, digital photography, and digital video and video editing, accompanied by a musical soundtrack similarly produced digitally through composition software.
Slick Mirage 2 by Adam Jaye Porter, a synthesis of multi-media sources based on scans of materials from queer archives, which are then wrapped around scanned 3D models of the artist’s boyfriends, then further manipulated into collages.
Processing Gender Aspirations by the California-based artist Homosocial, a photograph of an androgynous child surrounded by a microchip created out of cut paper that is bending the binary.
The Lost Garden, an eight-minute video by New Jersey-based artist Jeremy Newman with music by Rachel Blythe Udell, focused on the tension between the natural and built environments, with natural footage aestheticized through video effects.
Listening Windows by Scottish artist Lucia Sheppard, a video exploring the social isolation yet inherent connection with others as seen by looking up at the windows of an apartment building as dozens of neighbors go about their day and night, enhanced by audio pieces featuring the artist’s friends and family as well as strangers around the world.
And 10 works on 10 pedestals in the Sweet Old World collaborative installations created by D.C. artist Chris Combs and Alexandria-based artist Ceci Cole McInturff, integrating organic elements with the industrial/technological to examine planetary and cultural degradation, technology’s influence on habits and information in society, and hopeful signs of unity and random beauty.
On display through Feb. 20. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m., Wednesdays to Sundays. Touchstone Gallery, 901 New York Ave. NW. Visit www.touchstonegallery.com for the slick virtual exhibit.
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