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March Artists (Astrid Espenhain, Kailum Graves, Tolmie MacRae)

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MCCALVASP – Astrid Espenhain  (Copenhagen, Denmark)

MCCALVASP shows a fascinating universe of soft transitions and movements of organic shapes and changing colours. The abstract images are induced by the interplay of coloured light and a semi transparent indeterminable material. The interaction between colour, light and reflections create new compositions in continuous transformation.

Light, colours and the interplay between them are key elements in all my art works. In my videos, I explore the spatial qualities and the aesthetics in colour and light. 

The Uncanny – Kailum Graves (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)

There is authenticity in low-resolution imagery. This is how Bigfoot, UFO, and Loch Ness Monster videos uploaded to YouTube gain their validity. Similarly, the most powerful still and moving images from conflict and occupied zones are often low-resolution, heavily pixelated, and blurred. In researching this project, I began to realise how fundamental the pixel is in allowing us to cross borders in real-time through the emission and instantaneous reception of visual signals (live streaming webcams, security cameras, and mobile footage from protests, war zones and dangerous journeys). I wanted to embrace this quality—which enabled me, from Mexico City, where I was undertaking a residency—to capture beachgoers at leisure using a networked surf camera above Coolum Beach, Australia. The uncanniness of the images—at times the people documented appear more mythical creature than human—belongs to a politics of fear and threat of otherness (the pixelated face of a criminal, Bigfoot, fighter jet footage of an airstrike, or CCTV footage). These things sit at the intersection of digital and physical, and the real and imagined, where the spectacle trumps direct experience of the world, and things we recognise start to blur seamlessly into places and things that aren’t real.

Kailum is critically obsessed with the Web and born-digital content. He is particularly interested in image-rich technologies and the way global media communication—a landscape controlled by a handful of multidimensional oligopolistic corporate-run networks—can be sampled, organised, and considered in new philosophical, sociological, and political terms. Nonetheless, while these issues are political and economic in nature, Kailum believes anti-capitalist art offers no real alternative to the economic and ideological discourses of multinational capitalism. In its place, he is interested in examining the politics of the image and the construction of truth. To do this, he uses the Internet, which has normalised the act of collecting and compiling information, to preserve and curate found images and raw material. The aim is to engage with the cultural space and aesthetics of the Internet—and the vast amount of digital information it contains—as a subject, material, and tool of artistic production.

Oil Dancer – Circle – Tolmie MacRae (Köln, Germany)

Oil Dancer grew out of collaboration and experimentation with a fan dancer. The original intention was to explore a particular technique, but in trying to capture this elusive performance, the hypnotic and meditative rhythm and movements of the dancer, spiralled this piece in a completely different and unexpected direction. This piece was the genesis for my current body of work. Through constant experimentation and collaboration with a dancer I was able to explore and start to define my own aesthetic as a video artist. Video allows me to catalogue time and space into a language of frames. Once captured I would play and challenge their linear hierarchy , distorting it, pulling those moments and perspectives through each other. Like the cubists trying to represent every perspective at once, video allows me to pull each of these catalogued moments through themselves to paradoxically see each frame at once, whilst also allowing things to evolve and flow over time.

Tolmie explores the multiplicity of existence predominantly through the medium of video. Over the past five years his work has explored themes of meditation, transcendence and immanence by investigating the flow of light and time on people and landscapes. He plays with opposing ideas and then fuses them together. Rather than transcendence and immanence or creation and destruction as binary opposites the artist explores the tension of these seemingly competing states of existence as combined dualities. It is not a political or spiritual investigation for the artist but rather an individual exploration of the state of existence.

February Artists (Karl Munstedt, S/N)

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Collision Course – Karl Munstedt

Collision Course is a series of real-time 3D virtual environments which speculate upon the automation bias that is likely to drive our car-enabling transportation policies in coming years.

I’m an artist and technologist living and working in Brooklyn NY. My work tends to employ technologies like gaming, augmented reality, and the web to explore future, destruction, and fantasy. I graduated with a BFA in digital art from Pratt in 2018.

Stacked Skylines & Church Street – S/N (Greensboro, NC, USA)

This location responsive series of work was created by artist group s/n while in residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in 2019 in Charlotte, NC. Stacked Skyline is a playable collage featuring prominent buildings in the skyline. Church Street is a summer day dream meandering down Church St. The works exist also as color prints and 360° videos.

S/N is a multi-disciplinary art group, which works extensively with, but not limited to, video, sound, animation, photography, and mobile media. The exhibitions often include performative elements and mediated footage, pushing both experimental and conceptual ideas around media.

S/N members include Jennida Chase and Hassan Pitts  who crossed paths in 2007 while attending graduate school at Virginia Commonwealth University. They have been creating collaborative work since 2008, which have been exhibited and screened world wide in various festivals, galleries and museums including Hong Kong Art Fair, Pekin Fine Arts, DAS Weekend, the Freies Museum in Berlin, and the Czong Institute for Conmporary Art in Gyeonggi-do, Korea.

 

 

 

 

November Artists (Timo Wright, Jeffrey Yip, David Lunt, Udit Mahajan)

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Approach – David Lunt (Manchester, England, UK)

My work focuses primarily on the fine line between science fiction and science fact with particular reference to current (and future) universal exploration, the search for ‘new worlds’ and the sublime possibilities.

I am a Manchester (UK) born artist who graduated with an MA from Loughborough University in 2005. I have exhibited widely across the UK within well known art institutions and was shortlisted for the 2017 ‘GM Arts Prize’. I have been an artist in residence at ‘Bankley Studios’ since 2015. www.davesdarkfuture.blogspot.com

Null Statue – Timo Wright (Helsinki Finland)

Null Statue is an experimental short film, where crude oil is thrown at invisible objects, creating temporary abstract sculptures, which exist only in time, not space. Through editing chaotic virtual statues are created in time. 

Timo Wright is a media artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Wright has graduated with MA degree from the Aalto University School of Art and Design in Helsinki in 2014. He has participated in domestic and international exhibitions since the mid 2000s including Kunsthall Charlottenborg (2017&2018), Samuelis Baumgarte Galerie (2017), Galerie Anhava (2016), Helsinki Art Museum (2013), Helsinki Design Museum (2012), Amos Anderson Art Museum (2012), Kunsthalle Helsinki (2012, 2010, 2009) and Helsinki Art Museum‰ЫЄs Kluuvi Gallery (2012),  as well as festivals such as IDFA, Slamdance, Nordisk Panorama, International Film Festival Rotterdam and  Japan Media Arts Festival. His films have been shown at over 40 festivals worldwide. www.timowright.com

Transdimensional Spaces – Jeffrey Yip (Oakland California, USA)

My animations are inspired by reoccurring mathematical patterns found in nature such as the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio and other forms of geometry. As these shapes shift, melt and contort, they highlight the sculpture‰ЫЄs surface with bright vivid colors.

Jeffrey Yip is a new media artist in Oakland California. Highly interested in the intersection of art and technology, he creates environments, often utilizing digital media to enhance the overall experience by integrating visualizations in unison with sound. One area of focus currently in his practice is projection mapping. This technique allows Jeffrey to combine the digital world with the physical through light, sound and sculpture. Animation is layered on top of his geometric sculptures, and then joined with organic and synthesized sound to create a symbiosis of the various mediums. https://jeffreyyip.xyz/

Yuga -Udit Mahajan (New York, New York, USA)

Yuga is an abstract chronological meditation on formation, deformation, destruction and reformation. Presented as a video loop on the UMW Media Wall, the dimensional choreography of various elements in the journey reflect the evolving continuity of society and attempts to provide a moment of escape for the visitors.Udit Mahajan is a designer and artist based in New York. He has held a number of roles as practitioner and educator of creative technology, UX-UI design, and electrical engineering. He has worked with ESI Design, AV&C, The New School, Publicis Groupe, NYC Media Lab, Learning Community Charter School, Extrapolation Factory, and Bechtel.

Udit’s art practice primarily involves technological experiments as attempts to understand the perceptual and social interplay. His artworks have been exhibited at Vector Festival, World Maker Faire, SXSW, CICA Museum, Liberty Science Center, The Urban Foundation Gallery, NYC Media Lab Summit, Creative Tech Week and featured on Creators Project, Interalia Magazine, Athanor Magazine, MOLD, Electronic Beats, and Prosthetic Knowledge.

He holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design, New York and a BE in Electrical Engineering from Delhi Technological University, India.

Website: uditmahajan.com

 

October Artists (Matthew Wade, Yossi Galanti)

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Maniac Landscapes/Eyes at the Specter Glass – Matthew Wade (Boise, ID, USA)

“Maniac Landscapes” came from a series of dreams where I could hear crying, always distant, always from a person I was unable to see, but always feeling close. And though I was only a ghostly observer in these dreams, I was able to see the impact of this extreme sorrow on things in an old house. Flowers would move as if they were trying to respond to the sounds. The light outside would shift. Things felt so affected by energy. though much of the film was developed outside of the dream, I tried to support a kind of dream logic in its final presentation: light moves in impossible ways, inanimate objects take on movement and purpose, and answers are not as important as experiences and the atmosphere they unfold in.

“Specter Glass” refers to our perception of reality and how we catalog life events through memory, bias, and time. The lens of our eyes and the ghosts at this lens are trying to interpret the journey. The film imagines the memories of a collective of consciousness filtered through a single explorer whose entire bias is its own billion-year journey through the cosmos.

Matthew Wade is an award-winning classical animator, filmmaker, and musician living and working in the Northwest, USA. After graduating from Vancouver Film School’s Traditional Animation program in 2010, Matthew moved to Los Angeles, cutting his “industry teeth” as a freelance commercial animator. He has worked on ad campaigns for Target, Vans, Warner Brothers Records, the NFL, SCAD, SyFy Channel, Foot Locker, and more.
http://matthewade.com

Disrupted Landscape #4/Disrupted Landscape #6 – Yossi Galanti (Jerusalem)

One of the projects that the founders of Israel prioritized was to create a wall of green (by planting imported trees) that would surround the Jewish settlements. The aim of that project was to separate and differentiate the new population from the world around it. In the work, Disruptive Landscape #4 (submitted herewith), I chose as a base for this work a location with a relatively old planted forest, that has become the new local nature, nearby Jerusalem. In it, appear and disappear shots of moving clouds and water that stand for the immigrations along the years to this land.

Spiritual video montage. The filmed sites are located in various areas around Israel. Their visibility and significance revolve around nature and history, and are either man-preserved, man-made or even man- designed. In some cases, they are depicted free of human activity in order to use them as primary “canvases” on which to build the montage. Locations: 1. Ramon Crater, Negev Desert. Three (kings) jets. 2. Sea of Galilee. Walking on the water 3. Tel Aviv skyline

Submissions are now closed

Submissions to the UMW Media Wall will re open in May 2020.

The UMW Media Wall is now accepting submissions for the 2019-2020  academic year. Videos and generative programs should be silent and formatted for a 1920×1080 display. Download the UMW Media Wall Mask to properly adjust your work to the Wall’s unique monitor configuration.

Submissions will close on September 1st 2019.

UMW Media Wall submission form.

Questions? Contact umwmediawall at gmail dot com.

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April Artists (Lydia Moyer, Kate Shannon, Joelle Dietrick and Owen Mundy)

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Anemophilous Formula for Computer Art – Joelle Dietrick and Owen Mundy (North Carolina, USA)

Inspired by Jim Campbell’s Formula for Computer Art and Tallahassee’s annual sea of tree pollen, this generative animation is intentionally meditative. The diligently recorded data of the National Allergy Board guides the animation down a predictable path and stands in stark contrast to the chaos of everyday life. The project calls into question our obsession with mapping nature, as if grasping its sublimity would be essential to finding lifelong satisfaction.

Joelle Dietrick and Owen Mundy are a North Carolina–based collaborative art team who met at the University of California San Diego. Selected exhibitions of her work include the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville; Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California; Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago; MCA San Diego; Long March Space Beijing; ARC Gallery Chicago; and Soho20 New York. She has received funding from MacDowell, Künstlerhaus Salzburg, Anderson Ranch, the DAAD, the NEA, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the Fulbright Commission. Owen’s work is best known for his online interventions that have been reviewed by over 300 international news media outlets including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Wired UK. Recent exhibitions of his work include solo and group exhibitions in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, London, Berlin, and Rotterdam. His work is in Art and the Internet (2014) and Thinking Through Digital Media (2015).
https://joelledietrick.com

Ohio Skyscape – Kate Shannon (Columbus, Ohio, USA)

In the age of high-definition televisions and state-of-the art advertising, I have become interested in the outmoded advertisements I find in places like Mansfield, Ohio, where I currently work. Mansfield is a manufacturing city affected by a decades-long economic deterioration that has worsened in recent years. In Mansfield, the sky is sometimes interrupted by small, inelegant, desperate pleas for financial fulfillment.
There was one car dealership that captured my attention on my commute to work each day last year, which used a big blue gorilla to attract costumers. Like so many small businesses in my area that quickly come and go, the car dealership eventually went out of business. In this animation, a memorial to the doomed car dealership, a tiny gorilla advertisement penetrates a beautiful Ohio sky and competes for your attention.

Kate Shannon is an associate professor of art at The Ohio State University Mansfield.  The recipient of the 2013 OSU Mansfield Campus Award for Excellence in Scholarship, she has exhibited her creative work across the United States. Selected venues include Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, OH; the Zhou B Art Center Gallery in Chicago, IL; the Contemporary Arts Center in Las Vegas, NV; and TRACTIONARTS in Los Angeles, CA. Shannon received her MFA from The Ohio State University and her BFA from the University of Kentucky. She currently resides in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, son, and cats.
https://www.kateshannon.net

Terre Nullius – Lydia Moyer (Charlottesville, VA, USA)

The imagined flowers that bore witness to a young women’s overland journey back to the captive world from which she had come.  This video is a part of the Terre Nullius project, inspired by the story of Olive Oatman, a young Morman woman who lived among the Mojave people for a significant period in her youth before being conscripted back into the white world by a member of her birth family.
https://goodfornow.net

 

March Artists (Tara Youngborg, Scott Turri)

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Tara Youngborg (Virginia, USA)

I have been thinking about the way my brain operates.  Every time we access a memory, our brains overwrite the memory while recalling it. My experiences become the lens through which I see my memories, layering them with time and new memory, but also erasing and modifying that original experience.  When you save a JPEG image, the file becomes recompressed as it tries to find places where it can combine colors to save space. My memories are not so different from these JPEGs, changing over time.

Tara Youngborg is a new media artist working and living in Virginia. She is interested in utilizing the Internet as a space where personal stories can become collaborative, and ways to use code to create interactive and accessible artworks. She is also interested in exploring how identity and memory is formed, performed, and recalled on the Internet. Youngborg has shown her websites, videos, and gifs in publications and exhibitions in from coast to coast in the United States, as well as in Australia, and always online.
www.tarayoungborg.com

Polymer – Scott Turri (Pittsburgh,PA, USA)

By building a variety of animated parts I then work at combining, looping and overlaying these lyrical components by sequencing these passages into a hypnotic rhythm with the intent of mimicking the ebb and flow of nature. The parts have a certain consistency but are modularized and repackaged in a variety of iterations. These transformations provide a formal and conceptual link from one passage to another blurring the boundary between nature and what is human made. By combining this digitally manipulated landscape imagery with pill shaped screen-like passages, scope references, brick walls, and animation sequences my goal is to have the work grounded in place. The experience for the audience is meant to be much more ephemeral and link to the nature of memory and how we construct meaning and identity from our personal and cultural history and how it gets embedded through the natural and built environment.

Hailing from suburban Philadelphia, where he spent his formative years, Turri now calls Pittsburgh home and has become enmeshed in the regional art community. He has had a range of artistic experiences: from punk rock to a performance art band, writing for New Art Examiner, BOMB and Afterimage magazines, work in video, to currently concentrating primarily on painting and animation. Along with these pursuits, Turri is also an educator and holds a full-time lecturer position at the University of Pittsburgh.
www.scottturri.com

January/February Artists (Kostas Makrinos, Megan Dickie, Neil Ira Needleman)

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Choose a Character – Megan Dickie (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)
Choose a Character is one video from the project One Way or Another, which uses video games as a platform to explore our fascination with observing human struggle.  A trilogy of video animations pit a character against a series of impediments that she must overcome. Relentlessly, the character grapples with the obstacles but she persistently fails. Her struggle is a spiral of determination and amusement, hypnotizing us with the yearning to be recognized within the fickle world of competition.
Choose a Character  presents all of the characters from the video trilogy transitioning from one into another.
Megan Dickie’s practice uses extreme physicality, choreographed set-ups, and fantastic failures to poke at dominant systems. Recent solo exhibitions include L’OEil de Poisson (Québec City), Open Space (Victoria), Oxygen Art Centre (Nelson), Latitude 53 (Edmonton) and Stride (Calgary). She is also the recipient of projects grants from both the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council and the University of Victoria. She received her MFA from the University of Saskatchewan and a BFA from the University of Calgary. Her works are part of the collections of the University of Saskatchewan, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Nickel Arts Museum. Megan Dickie resides in Victoria, BC and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria.
http://megandickie.com

Kusama Infinity Loop – Neil Ira Needleman (Katonah, NY USA)
A colorful and lyrical homage to the remarkable, marvelous, wonderful artist Yayoi Kusama. What you see here is a 6-minute(ish) excerpt from a 17-minute(ish) strand of video that seamless loops with itself to form an infinite loop
I was born in Brooklyn, New York toward the middle of the last century. I’ve held a camera in my hand for as long as I can remember. Over the decades, the cameras may have changed, but my passion for tinkering with moving images hasn’t. I LOVE it. And I intend to keep doing it. My videos are regularly screened in film festivals around the world. And, yes, I’ve won a few awards along the way. This both surprises and delights me.
https://www.needlemanart.com/

A day in the bedroom of Laurie Evian – Kostas Makrinos (Chios, Greece)
An audiovisual experience that dilates time and explores the limits of our everyday microcosmos.
Born in 1983. Audiovisual and film studies. Experimental filmmaker and editor usually treating the subjects of time, form and non-linearity through abstract films.
http://kostasmakrinos.com

 

November Artists (Ezra Wube, Nancy Sepe)

 

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Twilight Galaxies– Ezra Wube (Brooklyn, NY, USA)

This animation short was inspired by immigrant holiday ceremonies. For the background I painted images of real and imagined galaxies. In the foreground I animated common objects that are found from these gatherings. These objects echo the transitory state of these ceremonies, becoming the new icon that defy a specific cultural association. As banal as they appear or void of originality, these objects can be a transmitter for a possible utopia through interaction, exchange and unstill-ness.

As a person who moved between geographies (Ethiopia, U.S.A.) time and place are no longer singular for me. I am in a continuous dialogue negotiating  These fragmentations are reconciled through the story telling aspects of my work, as means to connects multiple realities. For me, an imaginative relationship is necessary to adapt to a new environment, to embrace the here and now, and to connect with the ephemeral in the everyday. While collaging my past with present experiences, I attempt to make a third entity that is in both the past and the present in which places and time are continuously shifting.

Oracle– Nancy Sepe (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

Oracle features a unicycle performer who reveals multiple personas as she rides the tightrope.

Nancy Sepe is a multi media artist and educator living in New Hampshire. She works with found materials and time-based media, often incorporating the element of text into her work.