[NetBehaviour] How to Talk to Images - Exhibition by Richard Wright

[marc garrett]

Apologies for posting twice, the 1st mail froze and it seemed not to post...

marc
> How to Talk to Images
> Exhibition by Richard Wright
> at HTTP Gallery.
>
> 4th July - 3rd August 2008
> Opening Reception: Friday 4th July 6-9pm
> Exhibition open: Fri-Sun 12noon-5pm
> www.http.uk.net
>
> No one is sure how many images there are on the Internet. Google has 
> nearly a billion. Some say it is hundreds of times more than that. 
> People say that you can find a picture of anything on the internet, as 
> though the entire visual world is reflected there.
>
> For How to Talk to Images at London's HTTP Gallery, Richard Wright has 
> compiled a database of 50,000 random Internet images as the raw content 
> for two artworks. The Internet Speaks and The Mimeticon both explore new 
> conceptions of the image, called for by the sheer quantity of visual 
> information now available via the Internet.
>
> In this era, finding our way through the world of images is so 
> overwhelming, that the dominant mode is to “search” rather than to 
> “see”. An image is an answer to a question, a search query. The Internet 
> Speaks gives us one of the simplest imaginable ways of searching this 
> set of images, stepping through them, one by one in random order, 
> without context. In contrast, The Mimeticon is a wilfully complex and 
> ‘baroque’ search engine that allows us to search for images by visual 
> similarity rather than by typing in keywords. These 'search images' are 
> 'drawn' by us using letters from the history of the alphabet.
> As part of How to Talk to Images, Richard Wright’s first solo exhibition 
> in London, a selection of Wright’s animated films demonstrates the 
> development of his current interest in the Baroque. The exhibition is 
> also the occasion of publication of a limited-edition poster featuring 
> an essay by the artist illustrated by the entire visual history of the 
> Western alphabet – from its pictorial Egyptian origins 5,000 years ago 
> to its perfected form under the Romans, as well as a new book 
> documenting the artists twenty year long practice.
>
> Richard Wright is a visual artist working in the fields of digital 
> moving image and networked interaction. During the 1990s, Richard was 
> one of the pioneers of digital animation as a distinct artistic form, 
> with films being shown at numerous festivals and exhibitions and 
> broadcast by television channels around the world. In 1998 he received a 
> PhD in the aesthetics of digital film making and has published nearly 
> forty book chapters, articles and reviews. In 2004 he joined Mongrel – 
> an artists group internationally recognized for their work in software 
> art and 'free-media'. Since 2007 Richard has been Artist in Residence at 
> Furtherfield.org in London.
>
> HTTP Gallery
> Unit A2, Arena Design Centre,
> 71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY.
> Friday - Sunday: 12noon - 5pm
> http://www.http.uk.net
>
> HTTP Gallery is Furtherfield.org’s (www.furtherfield.org) dedicated 
> space for exhibiting networked media art. Furtherfield.org is a 
> not-for-profit, artist-led organisation. Based in Harringay, North 
> London, we provide an online and physical platform for creating, 
> exhibiting, commissioning, and discussing networked media arts.
>
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