09.29 SBMA Exhibition Visit

[glegrady]

09.29 SBMA Exhibition Visit

Comment on the works presented at the SBMA exhibition "Random Access Memory": https://www.sbma.net/index%2ephp/exhibi ... ternet-art and https://clairesophie.com/#ghost-coaster ... ster-2002-

Describe a couple of the works and your impressions of the museum exhibition in a couple of paragraphs. You should use online research, and AI to expand on your research, but the report has to be written in your own words without AI.

You can refer to last year's M200a class reports as a reference: viewtopic.php?f=94&t=408

[raswan]

Walking into the Random Access Memory exhibition at SBMA, I was initially unsure of what to make of the works or the artists' core intentions. The setup intrigued me right away, however, because it felt completely distinct from traditional art mediums. The dynamic video installations, motion graphics, and stills were paired really well with the programmatic, atmospheric soundtracks. As the showcase started and the curator shared his perspective, I really began to see how these artists tapped into internet culture and the digital medium itself to craft their pieces. It was quite compelling to watch how a single theme could yield such diverse results, whether through mining archival datasets and old YouTube footage to rebuild a lost moment in time, or by participating in and encouraging the absurd yet surprisingly human rabbit holes that bring people together online.

Claire Hentschker’s Ghost Coaster: The Star Jet Coaster really stood out to me in particular. This is a first-person simulation ride of the reconstruction of the New Jersey roller coaster that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. This piece functions as both a digital time capsule and a nostalgic monument. Using footage posted to YouTube prior to the storm, Hentschker creates an immersive ride through a collective memory. It was moving to me to see how technology can piece together fragments of an individual's experience to preserve a shared history, turning archival data into a visual medium for human connection.

The other works also offered thoughtful takes on how we interact with online networks and media. Zhanyi Chen’s Artificial Satellite Astrology leans into the strange ecosystems of internet subcultures, showing how people on the internet can construct elaborate alternative narratives to find comfort and community, no matter how far-fetched the premise might seem. Meanwhile, Andrew Norman Wilson’s video, Global Countdown, composed entirely of stock footage without a human presence, captures the culture of channel switching in the early 2000s television and cable broadcasts. Watching this representation of channel surfing, which has largely been replaced with doom scrolling on social media, it was interesting to recognize how the consumption of the internet and screens is still, if not more, prevalent today.

Overall, the thoughtful curation and spatial arrangement made the visit a really fun experience and made me appreciate the artworks. I really appreciate the artists' visions and the audiences' interpretations of the art, even if it wasn't how the artist intended. It is more about how the art speaks to a specific individual and can spark thought in oneself and discussion with one another.

[noahthompson]

It was a great experience to have a guided tour of the exhibit and have the opportunity to speak with the curator. Similarly, it was a great opportunity because it was the first internet/digital art exhibit at the SBMA, which I think is really valuable. I thought the curator's choices were great, I liked how they included the original youtube sources of Hentschker's work. It think when doing any kind of data visualization, even in spaces like photogrammetry, it is important to be forthright with the sources of data. Furthermore, it allows comparison between the original setting and digital setting, showcasing the artifacts and discontinuities that mirror a fading memory.
The work that stood out to me the most however was Andrew Norman Wilson's Global Countdown. Multiple aspects make it so impactful, the audio implementation feels spot on, and its aesthetics match current internet trends despite being made 15 years ago. Primarily though, the fact that it uses so much stock media clips that are no longer available. The work I think can be resonant at any point in time, as it highlights a very particular era in computer graphics while purposefully excluding any human presence. People may continue to feel more and more isolated as technology becomes more pervasive. I think a piece like this will be continue to be really interesting, both for archival purposes and for its potential for social commentary.
Both of these works have a timecapsule/preservation sort of ethos that I really enjoy.

[kai_yan]

Although Random-Access Memory was a small exhibition with only three works, each one held my attention. The layout encouraged me to keep looking, and the curator’s explanations made the works more interesting as I learned the stories behind them.

Claire Hentschker’s Ghost Coaster: The Star Jet Coaster uses riders’ YouTube videos to reconstruct a roller coaster destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. What interested me was how the reconstruction depends on where those riders pointed their cameras. They followed the same track, but their recordings captured different parts of the surroundings, leaving gaps in the model. Those gaps made me wonder how well we can know a place through recordings, especially when we can no longer visit it ourselves.

Zhanyi Chen’s Artificial Satellite Astrology felt familiar to me in a different way. Since we both come from China, I could relate to her interest in creating poetry through connections between words and things. Her approach reminded me of classical Chinese poetry, where an image of the natural world can suggest a feeling without explaining it directly. This is my own reading of her work, but it helped me connect with the satellite charts and their interpretations. She brings that poetic way of making connections into a system built around modern technology and orbital data. I liked the thought that the positions of machines we sent into space could become material for such personal readings.

[yuqiansun]

One work that I found particularly interesting was Zhanyi Chen’s Artificial Satellite Astrology. I was especially drawn to the satellite birth maps. After looking more into the artist, I realized that what I initially thought were digitally generated astrology charts were actually hand-drawn by the artist and then scanned into digital form. I found that really interesting, because the intricate diagrams looked so precise that I assumed they had been generated by a computer. Her other work, Do Clouds Hate Weather Satellites?, also combines paper, ink, and satellite imagery, which made me think more about what “digital art” can actually mean. Sometimes digital art can almost feel anti-digital in the way it brings digital information back into physical and handmade forms. Data visualization does not necessarily have to mean turning data into something more digital; it can also work in the opposite direction, taking computer-generated data and translating it back into a more tactile, traditional, and human form.

[tzulun]

The exhibition theme “Random Access Memory” is a clever choice of naming since it resonates with how the memory is stored in the computer, which in some way reflects the intention of each of the three works. The curation of these works walk us through different stages of web development. The Artificial Satellite Astrology particularly caught my attention right away because it seems like a tutorial at first. As the curator walked us through the work it turns out to be a self-defined astrology which is also interesting how the artist really makes a holistic building of the system. In addition, the interactive webpage really makes it more engaging and lets the viewers gain a better understanding of how it works.

[lilianzhao]

Artificial Satellite Astrology and Astrological Concrete Poetry by Zhanyi Chen
- I like how the artist combines humor/absurdity with real internet forums and astrological beliefs. The interchange of naturally occurring planets with human-created satellites as a subject of divine power is interesting in how it comments on the increased "worship" of man-made tech advancements, and the arbitrary nature of manmade systems of worship.

Ghost Coaster: The Star Jet Coaster 2002–2012 by Claire Hentschker
- I find the imperfect recreation of the roller coaster most interesting. The warped, missing, and blended parts of the 3D model feels very analogous to the lived sensation of remembering and forgetting things over time, which is fitting for a roller coaster that no longer exists physically.

Global Countdown by Andrew Norman Wilson
- Stock footage is really strange in the way it's sole purpose is to fill digital space
- They are meant to generalize reality in an ambiguous way, and are obviously staged and artificial
- I like how "Global Countdown" takes these stock clips out of context to force you to question how they reflect the online presence humans have built around themselves, and what's left when you take the people out of the picture.

[zhifanguo]

Although I didn't actually make it to visit SBMA, I watched videos and looked through the documentation online. The work Ghost Coaster is really appealing to me, which keeps me thinking about memory and digital archives. The roller coaster, destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, was part of the local community's collective memory and also part of the artist's own childhood memory. After the coaster was removed, the ride videos people had casually uploaded turned into an informal and unofficial archive. By running these videos through photogrammetry and rebuilding them in 3D, the artist brings this internet "heritage" back to life, which had probably gone quiet and still slowly, giving it a chance to be re-experienced and bring up new spaces of interpretation. But it also made me think about the power relationships in rebuilding an archive. I believe there is no archive can really resemble the past, and it's always a selective version of what happened before. When the artist rebuilds the roller coaster experience, there's inevitably a filtering process. The videos that don't get picked are left out, and even the ones that do get picked lose their original context (comments and interactions on the platform).

[yeonsukjung]

I was a bit disappointed with the curation.
The scope of the project seemed a bit small, and i did not find the internet history was a particularly attention grabbing.
I felt like the overarching theme was cohesive enough, and the experience to be a short.
The thematic element of the exhibit was archival cultural moment of the internet. My inability to relate to the culture presented here maybe shows how big the spaces on the internet is. DO to this, I did not related to any of the material presented in the gallery.