Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is pleased to present Transmissions, an exhibition of new work by noted new media artists Brigitte Kowanz and Mariano Sardón. This exhibition investigates encoded language systems and their formation of a cultural dialogue through contemporary sculptural forms.
Using artificial light as her primary medium, Brigitte Kowanz explores its relationship with space, language and time. Kowanz uses light as a linguistic system, manipulating it through the use of glass, mirrors and metal and shaping it into symbols, codes and text. The ultimate metaphor, light is the very means by which all modes of visual communication are possible.
Morse Code, one of the first forms of communication at the speed of light, recurs in Kowanz's work in various forms and materials. In "Morse Alphabet", Kowanz presents us with a circular arrangement of neon tubes. At intervals, black sleeves of varying widths block out the chalk-white color emitted by each lamp, with the illuminated and black sections combining to produce each letter in the Morse alphabet.
As a second-generation video sculptor, programming is fundamental to Mariano Sardón's works. Crafting both the software and hardware himself, he explores the interconnected relationships between technology, science and art. By examining the human bodies relationship to technology, Sardon's works function as prototype cybernetic interfaces, elucidating the boundaries of the physical and the digital.
The Morphologies of Gaze series was created by using metrics to trace the pupil movements of several subjects as they were shown a portrait. The artwork recreates the original portrait by using the information gathered to re-form the image based on how the subjects' eyes traced that portrait. This further exemplifies Sardon's interest in the connection between the human and the digital leading to the formation of communication.
Brigitte Kowanz (b. 1957) lives and works in Vienna Austria. Her work was recently included in the seminal exhibition The Light Show at the Hayward Gallery (London, UK). Kowanz has also held solo exhibitions at Borusan Contemporary (Istanbul, 2013), Häusler Contemporary (Munich, 2012) and Museum Ritter (Waldenbuch, 2012).
Mariano Sardón (b. 1968) lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he is a professor, researcher and chair of the Electronic Art Degree at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. Sardón was awarded the Konex Prize in Visual Art (2012) and obtained the Experimentation Prize in Non-traditional Supports and Video (2008) by the Argentinean Association of Art Critics.