I enjoyed much of the exhibition though having appreciated the few interactive works on show I was left wanting more of them.
I particularly liked Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s ‘Surface Tension’ 1992, a video installation close up of an eye which was closed when no one was in the vicinity of the work but woke up when someone stood in front of it and then followed the viewer around the room. It was an amusing take on “the eyes follow you around the room, you know” but, more seriously, commented on the surveillance culture in which we now find ourselves enmeshed.
Douglas Coupland’s ‘Deep Face’2015 also concerned surveillance, suggesting ways of avoiding Facebook’s facial recognition software by covering the face of the large portraits with abstract works of art. A number of other works also took the intrusion caused by electronic spying as a theme.
Jonas Lund’s work V.I.P. (Viewer Improved Painting) 2014, where the colours of the video work built up according to which of the two screens you looked at was fascinating but perhaps the final result was not so easily distinguishable from that of the person who did it before you!
There seems to me to be great potential for interactive works. I would have liked more of them and fewer video films (am I alone in finding many artists’ videos tedious, even the ones that have flashes of inspiration?).
There are painterly works on show that use simple digital drawing techniques coupled with far from simple reproduction techniques, there are mobile phone screenshots and, in the early year’s room, some pulsating lights which reminded me of early Pink Floyd light shows (puts me in an age bracket). There’s a lot to like here and I can definitely recommend this exhibition (on until 15th. May).
Peter Luty 