Image: Tom White, Pitch Dream, 2018. Screen print on black paper, 44 x 39 cm.
Image: Tony Curran, Limiting Entropy, 2018. Oil on polyester, 92 x 122 cm. Image courtesy of Fiona Little.
Sanne Carroll, Tony Curran, Daniel Eatock and Tom White
Curated by Emerson Radisich
Gallery 3
Friday 30 September - Sunday 16 October
Algorithmic chicane is an exhibition that explores potential uses for algorithms in contemporary drawing practices. It incorporates works by four artists: Daniel Eatock (UK), Tom White (NZ), Tony Curran (TAS) and Sanne Carroll (ACT).
Algorithms are procedures, instructions or derivations which use information to solve problems. They have been used in creative practices since the mid-20th century by artists including Ben Laposky, who in 1953 created his Oscillion works which incorporated repurposed everyday items such as TVs and radios, and Frieder Nake, one of the founding fathers of computer art, who established an algorithmic approach to measuring aesthetic merit.
Today, artists commonly generate algorithms within a computer to directly produce an artwork or to provide a set of rules which in turn governs the production of an artwork. These systems include computer coding, mathematical functions and expressions, through to more simplistic deterministic algorithms such as recipes for construction. Algorithmic chicane seeks to examine a range of artist practices that incorporate algorithmic artโs potential for abstraction. It showcases the wide-spanning possibilities for the use of algorithms within contemporary art practice. Works by Tom White exemplify an entirely computer-based algorithmic approach to production which wouldnโt be computational by humans, and Daniel Eatockโs process-based abstractions typify artworks created through a formation of simple rules which guide a process of repetition.
Daniel Eatock is a UK-based artist and graphic designer. He employs algorithms to inform his practice and to set out logical, rational and pragmatic methods for making art. Felt tip prints are comprised of 48 Winsor & Newton markers which have been placed atop 48 sheets of white paper for one minute each; creating a billboard block that materialises over the duration of production.
Sanne Carroll is an ACT-based artist who uses etchings and drawings to map images within mathematical constructions. Her Glitch in the system drawings are constituted of mathematical grids which utilise algorithms to inform her drawing process.
Tony Curran is an artist and lecturer based in Launceston. His paintings incorporate digital media in the production of his artworks, where images are first mapped digitally and then reconstructed with paint from the digital renditions. Tony is exhibiting works from the series Parts of you are dying and Limiting entropy.
Tom White is an NZ-based artist who used algorithms to explore how machines see the world. Articulating the โalgorithmic gazeโ, his series Synthetic Abstractions are abstract screen patterns that constantly register as explicit by major image recognition systems such as Google, Amazon and Tumblr but are less perceptible to humans. In doing so, Tom utilises algorithms to explore and contextualise how machines see the world.