Inspired by Argentinian author Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1940 novel, The Invention of Morel, the exhibition Memory Burn observes mortality and death in relation to recording devices. A group of 8 artists intricately explore ideas of presence and absence through their works, simultaneously referring to the relationship between unforgettable visions burned in the mind and digital burning used to archive memories. Memory Burn opens at Bitforms Gallery on July 10th and runs until August 16th.

2. The Baroque Power Group’s July series at 2 Rivington St.

As an art collective that endorses Spinozan ethics, the Baroque Power Group believes it is their ethical duty to build energy, happiness and fulfillment of all beings through considered creative acts that bear this connectedness in mind. Throughout the month of July, each of the four artists will present a weeklong show that affirms the primacy of nature, the primacy of community, the dignity of the individual, and the gift of consciousness. The July series is on view until July 26th.

3. Albert Oehlen: Home and Garden at New Museum

From his “Computer Paintings” to “Switch Paintings”, Albert Oehlen has been called the most unpredictable German painter working today. From studying under Sigmar Polke in the 1970’s, Oehlen’s usual components in his paintings include angst-free Abstract Expressionist brushwork, Surrealist automatist scribbles, trails resembling graffiti art, bits of popular advertising imagery and even composite images built on the computer. This group of 26 paintings from 1983 to 2011 creates a compelling sense of his varied pursuit of turbulence, his expanding techniques and his deepening as an artist. Albert Oehlen: Home and Garden is on view until September 13th.

4. Philippe Parreno: H{N)Y P N(Y}OSIS at Park Avenue Armory

Prepare to leave sequel logic behind as you enter Philippe Parreno’s exhibit at Park Avenue Armory’s 55,000 square-foot drill hall. In H{N)Y P N(Y}OSIS, the five films, 26 marquee light shows and endless emission of eerie, disjointed streams of sound will make you feel both exhilaration and frustration as you try to predict what spectacle will come next. Tied to New York and steeped in melancholy and nostalgia, Parreno’s slow-paced art films are both hauntingly beautiful and tedious. This sensory journey through both remastered existing works and new projects metamorphoses the building into a perpetually evolving organism. Philippe Parreno: H{N)Y P N(Y}OSIS continues until August 2nd.

5. Summer Show at Petzel Gallery

Three artists, three installations, one gallery. Bringing together the diverse and immersive works of installation artists Jon Pylypchuk, Jorge Pardo and Dirk Skreber, Petzel’s group show is explosive, showing sand-blasted paintings, surreal 3D-printed hanging light fixtures and some highly catastrophic video art of a slow motion car crash. The show will remain on view until August 7th.

More than ever, contemporary artists are employing evolving technology to bring the dynamic interactions of the digital and physical world to the public. How did you personally become interested in the intersection of art and technology and Internet culture? 

I grew up playing a lot of video games – maybe that is not so surprising. I was a bit addicted in some ways. Not really to ones with guns or heavy violence, but the more fantastical and surreal types. I also enjoyed drawing, strange films, and so forth. Exploring chat rooms with my friends in high school was also fun.

When I began thinking about college and such I wasn’t sure what I would do. Studio art and art history (abstract painting mostly) was an interest mostly because I was not aware of this world of art and technology. It took me some time to realize there were artists using the Internet, animation, video, and installations to make works – and that they came from the same mindset as me. In school, South Jersey unfortunately didn’t have that community.

It wasn’t until I was in NYU and taking classes in media art conservation with Glenn Wharton that I realized there was a place for me in the arts that was really a language I understood.

What influence did you find the changes in technology had on artists’ practices during your research?

I think it makes it better really. Being able to create in a virtual world or with virtual tools, or having our eyes and minds affected by things outside of the real world shapes ones outlook and production.

We could say this is the new surrealism, new painting, new body, or whatever but ultimately it just allows artists to more closely create things in their imaginations. They’re doing their own thing – of course its connected to history, but it is also something different.

Also, when I research something I tend to read a lot of fiction rather than just art historical texts. The artists of this show are making works that border fiction and reality.

Where did the idea for this exhibition come from? Could you elaborate on the meaning of the show, “MYTH AND MUTATIONS”? 

The idea of the exhibition came from a short passage by Jorge Luis Borges called “Mutations.” In it the author discusses how symbols change over time. For instance an arrow used to be a symbol of power, war, or swiftness. Now we see arrows mostly used for exit signs. Toward the end the author questions why he marvels at such things when time will only alter them.

I felt like the artists of the exhibition kind of answer that question. They aren’t demeaning symbols or making them less important – if anything they elevate them and mutate them in a way that makes us think more about the world we live in and what we see. The power a symbol or iconography can hold. It is a strange world where everything is mixed together and appropriated.

The title of the show then, looks at how different materials, people, objects, basically anything, has a mythology to it, but mythologies are meant to change. You’ll never hear the same story twice. Other texts that inspired this were Roland Barthe’s “Mythologies” and a great book called “Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds” by Marina Warner that the artist Rachel Maclean introduced me to. So I would also say, another big part of the idea was just based on the artists I know, and that their works are inspired by the past but also looking at our present and potential futures.

The exhibition seems to suggest that certain methods of storytelling transcend time, adapting to evolving technology and image production. What makes myth making and myth telling essential to us?

I think if we didn’t make up stories we would cease to move forward or exist. It’s kind of what makes us human. I feel all the works are very active in making you question certain conventions of what is or isn’t. I’ve seen or heard of many exhibitions on mythologies before that stay in one area, either interpreting a Greek myth, or having objects that are pretty static. I think our generation calls for new mediums and ways of interpreting the world around us. Its essential we question things around us or everything would stay the same.

MYTH AND MUTATIONS will be on view at REVERSE until April 10th.

In our latest exhibition at REVERSE, SEASTEAD AT NIGHT, artist Victor Liu explored several intertwined themes through his installations: the desire for alternatives to the nation-state, utopia as a business proposal, and sociopolitical fashion as a culmination of the neoliberal project.

In relation to this idea, we had two dynamic discussions hosted by Utopia School at REVERSE this month. Stemming from the fundamental question of how we as species connect to our complex ecosystems, we explored diverse ideas from collective housing to seasteading.

One figure discussed was the mycologist Paul Stamets. In his words, “The task that we face today is to understand the language of nature. I believe nature is intelligent. The fact that we lack the language skills to communicate with nature doesn’t impugn the concept that nature is intelligent. It speaks to the inadequacy of our skill set for communication.”

The ways in which we deal with each other as social beings are crucial in developing communication with nature, as what we do about our ecology depends hugely on what we think about ourselves in relation to the mystical things around us. Throughout the talks, we were able to come up with different steps to better understand our ecosystems; these included building community gardens and collective houses, as well as rebuilding abandoned spaces like wastelands into social centers. Through this cooperation, we would increase our political, economical, social and cultural strength.

Seasteading is another response to our current situation: creating permanent dwellings at sea outside of the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation. Makoko Floating School in Lagos, Nigeria is one example of this practice, whereby a new social and communal space was built for people on the water.

Another interesting approach is the development of the International Ocean Station, a project advancing hardware and software to enable intelligent human activities at sea. The design resembles floating architecture functioning like an organism reacting and adjusting to its environment. It exists as a laboratory for techno-social experiments and a new post-disaster lifestyle.

There are still a lot of technological and logistical details that need to be figured out to enable seasteading to exist as a sustaining practice. This idea of repurposing a space, however, can possibly lead to change and deeper forms of communication and understanding into how we as species relate to ecosystems. How do you imagine the utopian vision of seasteading and alternative lifestyles in the future?

As multimedia is certainly sweeping the contemporary art world, new media artists are not going for the past’s banal conventions; instead, they are more than ever employing evolving technology to bring dynamic interaction of the digital and physical world to the public. Projection mapping is a technology that can turn almost any surface into a dynamic video display. Specialized software is used to warp and blend projected images so they fit perfectly on irregularly-shaped “screens”. These projections then become independent organisms, expressing characters through their designated language: that of space, light, form, and sound.

In preparation for our upcoming MAPPATHON workshop, we sat down with MAPPATHON’s creator and instructor, CHiKA, and asked her a few questions. CHiKA is an interactive visual artist and educator who creates interactive projection mapping installations that explore the relationship between light, sound and public audience.

How did you become interested in projection mapping?

Coming from a VJ (live visual performance) background, projecting onto 3-dimensional surfaces looked very fresh compared to an ordinary projection on a flat surface. I became inspired and interested in projection mapping to explore a new way of presenting my artwork.

How is projection mapping incorporated into your own work and how does this tool enhance the meaning of your work?

I shifted my work from video to LED installations using a projection mapping technique in order to simplify my artistic expression and give a stronger message. With this technique, the public can see their collaboration with the installation much more clearly and easily.

 What are some interesting past projects that students of your workshop came up with?

My students always surprise me, especially a student who has no knowledge of video or projection mapping. These are the ones who always jump high. I guess students come into my workshop like a white canvas. Past students have explored projection on existing structures of space, founded objects, origami paper, 3d masks and themselves!

What kind of projects do you think best lend themselves to the techniques/technologies learned in your workshop?

Creating simple 2 or 3 dimensional surfaces to understand how the projection mapping software MadMapper works. Also, recognizing how the video content relates to the shape of the surface onto which it is projected helps to convey a good concept.

 What artistic projects are you working on now?

Right now I am working on creating a wearable LED cloth, an infinity installation and a generative data visualization piece.

MAPPATHON will be held at REVERSE from Friday, March 27th through Sunday, March 29th. The workshop will culminate with a Showcase of the students’ installations on Sunday, March 29th from 6 – 8 PM.

We got a chance to spend some time and get to know the visionary behind our latest exhibition SEASTED AT NIGHT. Victor Liu is a Brooklyn based visual artist who is currently inspired by seastead initiatives, or proposals to build floating city-states in the ocean.

Motivated by how art relates to society, Victor creates beautiful yet imperfect structures that represent “failed utopias”. This idea became famous through Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin, who designed “Tatlin’s Tower”, a grand monument that was never built. Victor built these structures to represent the idea of a space where people from different backgrounds could come together and have another chance at rebuilding identity. The irony that these shapes themselves are failed in structure and could never rationally fit or float in the sea, further examines the idea of successfully failed utopias.

Victor’s belief in imagination and the idea of “seasteads” are explored in his installation now on view at REVERSE. We invite you to visit the exhibition and experience the artist’s utopian fable. SEASTEAD AT NIGHT will be up until March 22nd.

Read more about SEASTEAD AT NIGHT in Floating Cities Of The Future Are Not As Crazy As They May Seem by collectively.org.