Niche.LA Video Art participates in DigitalArt.LA
digital international art expo curated by Rex Bruce

Rex Bruce and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art present:

DigitalArt.LA

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD DIGITAL ART LA MAP

Thursday August 14, 12-9pm
Friday August 15, 12-5pm
Saturday August 16 12-5pm
Opening Reception: Thursday August 14, 7-9pm at LACDA

FREE and open to the public
(earlier arrival for Thursday artwalk and reception
advised, there is much to see!)

Digital Art L.A. is a multi-site international digital art expo in the Gallery Row area of Downtown Los Angeles organized by Rex Bruce and L.A. Center for Digital Art (LACDA). The event includes exhibits by area galleries, theatres, and venues near LACDA. Many of these venues will host selected work from major out of area institutions. The centerpiece will be an international new media exhibit of juried submissions hosted by LACDA selected by Howard Fox, curator of contemporary art, L.A. County Museum of Art. This exhibit will run through September 6 at LACDA.

The event will take place August 14-16, opening with the Downtown Art Walk. The reception will be August 14, 7-9pm at LACDA. We are in collaboration with the Downtown Film Festival – Los Angeles, which is running on those dates and are screening LACDA video artists at SCI-arc Saturday August 16. As well, SIGGRAPH (a huge computer graphics and art convention) is a parallel event at the L.A. Convention Center that week.

Screenings and exhibits for major out of area institutions include:
UCR | California Museum of Photography, Pompidou Centre | Forum des Images, and Centre for Contemporary Art (Danzig, Poland). Included are video installations at the Regent Theater (Thursday only), circuit bender street music, street projections, video screenings at Niche.LA and Spring Arts Collective, a plethora of tables promoting art friendly magazines, newspapers, the creative commons and all electronic frontiers.

Visit: http://DigitalArt.LA for complete info!

Participants and Sponsors include:

UCR | California Museum of Photography · Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Danzig / Poland · Pompidou Centre | Forum des Images · Downtown Film Festival – Los Angeles · Austin Museum of Digital Art · Niche.LA Video Art · Found Gallery L.A. · Phantom Galleries L.A. · Creative Commons · Spring Arts Collective · Pharmaka Gallery · Dale Youngman Gallery · El Nopal Press Gallery · Bert Green Fine Art · Crewest Gallery · Sphinx Studio · Yarger | Strauss Contemporary · Artillery Magazine · Coagula Art Journal · Citizen L.A. · AbsoluteArts.com · It’s Liquid Project / Italy · compactspace · Phyllis Stein Art · Russell Brown Gallery · Regent Theater · Edgar Varela Fine Arts

LACDA Artists Selected by Howard Fox:

R. Luke DuBois
Lian Sifuentes
Nicky Enright
Robert Mack
Daniel DeLuna
Vonda Yarberry
Will Duke
Martin Sundvall
Yuko Kabayashi
Chirstinn Whyte
Jake Messenger
Jonathan Hounshell
Melanie Manos
Sarah Buckius
C.K. Reynolds
Michael Shaw
Michael Wright
Stephen Axelrad
Dimitri Darras
Gary Raymond
Damon Sauer
Julie Anand
Campbell Laird
Bill Jackson
Steen Doessing
Lizabeth Eva Rossof
Luke Matjas
Guenter Stoeger
Russ Quackenbush
Yoshiaki Murakami
Elisabeth Eberle
Benjamin Cadena
Thomas Briggs
Kireilyn Barber
Baiju Parthan
Ansen Seale
Cheman Zo
Belinda Haikes
Ethan Turpin
Ellen Scott
Adrienne Outlaw
Christopher Ault
David Clark
Joseph Farbrook
Jared Lamenzo
Galina Manikova
Beat Suter
Alan Bigelow
Nanette Wylde
Barbara Strasen

LACDA Artists exhibited at various spaces and galleries:

Anneliese Varaldiev
Mark Mothersbaugh
Michael Salerno
Tiffany Trenda
Charli Siebert
Rex Bruce
Rachel Bruya Walker
Benedikt Gross
Steve Luke Hanson
Melissa Ann Lambert
Linda Levinson
Marianne Magne
Paho Mann
Hector Mata
David Powell
Devon Paulson
Curators and Organizers:

Rex Bruce
Kelly Hargraves
Lilli Muller
Luca Curci
Nic Cha Kim
Reggie Woolery
Michał Brzeziński
Benoît Labourdette
Yves Gaillard
Jonny Coleman
Renatta Tellez
Greg Ptacek

Juror’s Statement from Howard N. Fox, Curator of Contemporary Art,Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Digital technology was initially invented for computing and data storage; later it was developed for use in audio and video equipment; and after that was adapted to all manner of communication and imaging, from cell phones to body scans. But all such applications are rooted in the apprehension, storage, transmission, and display of information – that is, of facts, of data, of any useful worldly intelligence – in the form of binary code. At least until the artists got to it.

It is hardly surprising, given the roots of modern art in notions of a revolutionary avant-garde, that progressive artists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries devoured new materials, new technologies, and new art forms with a prodigious and omnivorous appetite. Digital technologies are no exception, and whether artists today use digital tools to aid in generating traditional art forms (for example by making virtual sketches toward paintings or sculpture) or as the basis of experimental new art forms that are generated by and/or displayed via binary code, many artists around the world have indeed gone digital.

In selecting the works for DigitalArt.LA, no aesthetic parameters or requirements were set. Artists were free to submit work of any artistic persuasion – and they did, with copious entries that ranged from moving images to interactive installations to still images. Yet it seems that certain aesthetic predilections may have been at work. The works that asserted themselves most strongly tended to be those that integrally and overtly engage digital technology in the final form of the work. Thus, while some very compelling “straight” photography made with digital cameras and print methods is deservedly represented, the preponderance of works here tend to manipulate the factuality of the real world or to invent worlds that exist only in a realm of digital generation and display. The exhibition is characterized less by faithful reportage than by invention, transfiguration, and wonderment.

So while the “ancient” history of digital technology may have its DNA in strictly practical, informational tasking, the interests and imaginations of the artists who have appropriated those technologies in recent years have evolved them into agents of human psyche that, like much art throughout human history, has only a passing focus on things as they are and much more engagement with our dreams, our fears, our desires.
Howard N. Fox Juror, DigitalArt.LA
[Note: Mr. Fox is Senior Curatorial Fellow of Contemporary Art at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art]