Tomorrows

Tomorrows: Artists Address Our Uncertain Future brings together artists and collectives who are responding to the societal and ecological uncertainties that lie ahead. The artists included in the exhibition work through a wide range of sentiments and creative positions as they navigate the intersection of art and technology. They also delve into AI and virtual reality, reflecting on the destabilizing potential of new technologies and the allure of immersive environs. As environmental concerns take the spotlight, artists grapple with impending climate catastrophe through various media and different degrees of pessimism and activism. Tomorrows considers how today’s artists engage with our swiftly changing world to contemplate how and where we go from here. The exhibition features new artworks and installations by Eva Davidova, [phylum] (Carlos Castellanos, Johnny DiBlasi, Bello Bello), Jude Griebel, Eryk Salvaggio, and Sam Van Aken.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Eva Davidova explores behavior, ecological disaster, and the political implications of technology through performative works rooted in the absurd. Challenging a singular narrative, she combines ancient mythology with the current technological moment to address the impending ecological catastrophe. Her practice involves research, performance, 360 video and 3D sculpture, game engines, participatory Virtual Reality and interactive, site-specific immersive installations. She often deliberately "misuses" technology in order to disrupt its acceptance and the emotional manipulation, which it exerts. Davidova has exhibited at the Bronx Museum, the UVP at Everson Museum, the AKG Buffalo Art Museum, MACBA Barcelona, CAAC Sevilla, La Regenta, ISSUE Project Room, Harvestworks, and Instituto Cervantes among others. @evadavidovany @evadavidovany

[phylum] is an experimental research collective specializing in cultural production informed by the intersections of science, technology and the arts. Our approach is exemplified by the embracing of aggressive transdisciplinarity and a continuously shifting, heterogeneous structure. We build systems and models that exhibit high degrees of uncertainty and ambiguity, which allows us to explore novel approaches to knowledge generation and experiential inquiry. phylum.cc

Bello Bello is an interdisciplinary artist whose focus is experimenting with art, biology, sound and technology. He creates custom electronics and software to enable participants to interact with plants and other lifeforms. Bello uses art and science as a means to showcase the beautiful and necessary symbiosis of earth's diverse lifeforms, and his works utilize nature’s phenomenal energies as a catalyst for self-discovery and awareness. Bello received his Bachelors of Fine Arts with a concentration in Digital/Experimental Media from Kansas State University.

Carlos Castellanos is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher with a wide array of interests such as cybernetics, ecology, embodiment, phenomenology, artificial intelligence and transdisciplinary collaboration. His work bridges science, technology, education and the arts, developing a network of creative interaction with living systems, the natural environment and emerging technologies. His artworks have been exhibited at local, national and international events such as the International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA), SIGGRAPH and Centro del Carmen de Cultura Contemporánea (CCCC) in Valencia, Spain. He is also a founding member of Phylum, an interdisciplinary research collective working at the intersection of science, technology and the arts. Castellanos is Assistant Professor at the School of Interactive Games & Media (IGM), Rochester Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University and an MFA from the CADRE Laboratory for New Media, San Jose State University.

Johnny DiBlasi's transdisciplinary practice explores and utilizes various art-making processes including programming, video, installation, sculpture, performance, photography, and physical computing. His holistic approach of employing any media aspires to create linkages and hybrid forms. DiBlasi is interested in the various intersections of art, technology, science, and societies. Through his projects, the artist is interested in the contemporary, global landscape. More specifically, the construction of spaces and of the landscape - both actual and virtual. Johnny DiBlasi received his MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD. He works as an artist, designer, and educator in Indianapolis, IN and Houston, TX In 2010, DiBlasi co-founded the artist collective {exurb}, an interdisciplinary group comprised of artists and engineers.johnnydiblasi.com @johnny_dee_2.0

Jude Griebel creates intensively detailed figurative sculptures and drawings that visualize our entanglement with the surrounding world. In his works, landscapes, the species we affect, and the waste we create, coalesce in vivid forms that illustrate the reach of our impact and consumption habits. Both harbingers of ruin and agents of transformation, his works build on art historical traditions of the anthropomorphic body to reflect a planet in a state of crisis. Griebel’s work has recently been supported by residencies at institutions including Pioneer Works, New York; International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY. His work has been funded by major grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. Griebel’s work is included in collections internationally including Arsenal Contemporary Art, Montreal; the Sakima Art Museum, Okinawa and the Volpert Foundation, New York. @judegriebel

Eryk Salvaggio is an artist and researcher exploring how new technologies can inspire new aesthetic vocabularies. Working at the critical edge of technology for 25 years, Salvaggio embraces a philosophy of creative misuse that aims to run both playful and insightful interference into how we use communications technologies, and to point to broader possibilities. He writes regularly about AI images from a critical but engaged point of view at cyberneticforests.com @eryksalvaggio

Sam Van Aken is a contemporary artist whose work utilizes the techniques of grafting as an artistic medium to create multi-grafted trees that blossom in different tones and bear fruit from summer into fall. Focused on preserving heritage fruit varieties, Van Aken most recently planted an orchard of these heirloom and antique varieties on Governors Island that makes these fruit and ways of growing them available to the public. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Sam Van Aken grew up on a family dairy farm. He received his undergraduate education in Art and Communication Theory. Immediately following his studies he lived in Poland and worked with dissident artists under the former communist regime through the auspices of the Andy Warhol Foundation and the United States Information Agency. Van Aken received his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and since this time his work has been exhibited and placed nationally and internationally. He has received numerous honors including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, the Association of International Curators of Art Award, and a Creative Capital Grant. Most recently, his work has been presented as part of Nature at The Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial and the Cube Design Museum, Netherlands; and was recognized as a Cultural Leader, exhibiting and presenting at the 2020 World Economic Forum. Sam Van Aken lives and works in Syracuse New York, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Art at Syracuse University. @samvanakenstudios

IMAGE

Still from Garden for Drowning Descendent, an immersive, mixed reality participatory installation by Eva Davidova

PARTNERS AND CREDITS FOR GARDEN FOR DROWNING DESCENDENT

The exhibition of Garden for Drowning Descendent is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature through the Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) a regrant partnership of NYSCA and Wave Farm, and co-presented with Harvestworks. Executive producer for the installation at Rochester Contemporary Art Center is The Hybrid Studio. The artwork was commissioned by Harvestworks with funding support from the NYSCA Individual Artist Film, Media & New Technology Grant. Special thanks to creative technologist Sidney San Martín.

Sound: Bergsonist (Selwa Abd), Matthew D. Gantt and Dafna Naphtali
Performers: MX Oops, Catherine Kirk, Vinson Fraley, and Danielle McPhatter
Motion Capture files from Eve, by choreographer and dancer Kristen McNally
Team in Trinidad: Choreography, Performance, Costume: MX Oops, Camera: Arnaldo James, Location Scouting: Jalaludin Khan
Team at green screen studio: RD Content