Digital technologies now thread through most aspects of our everyday lives. The artists in this exhibition use computing as a tool, medium and subject, exploring our cultural and even spiritual relationships with the digital world.

Some artists experiment with interaction, where your physical engagement with technology is central to the function and meaning of the work. Some create generative works, where a set of mathematical rules, defined by the artist, dictate how the work evolves. Sculptural works hint at the near future when greater access to digital tools could make us all designers, personally customising products to suit our own needs and taste.

Organic ideas and imagery seem to emerge from these works, showing how similar rules underlie both the digital and natural worlds. Like many more traditional artists and craftspeople the diversity of ideas, imagery and mathematics in nature itself forms the base on which this craft is built.

This exhibition was curated by Lovebytes in partnership with Museums Sheffield, marking ten years of collaboration between the organisations.

Code:Craft features work by: C E B Reas, Golan Levin, William Ngan, Mehmet Akten, Daniel Brown, David Dessens, Daniel Widrig.


About the works.

Obzok
Golan Levin
Interactive virtual creature, 2001

Obzok is an uncomplaining, virtual, single-celled creature who you can manipulate using the mouse provided. Golan Levin's work often involves creating digital objects or experiences which we can identify with and which react to our presence or actions. He uses new digital languages and communication methods, to engage people emotionally with the complex digital world that we inhabit.


Network A
C E B Reas
Processing based generative digital animation, 2009
Courtesy of bitforms gallery nyc

Network A is a self-contained world. Like our world, it follows rules defining how elements interact and what structures can evolve. But this microworld has a smaller set of simpler rules. Here life and death mean nothing, just the creation and destruction of data.

Casey Reas wrote the visual programming language Processing with Ben Fry in 2001. It has been used in several works in this exhibition, as well as for other diverse applications from scientific research to music videos.


Mosumi
William Ngan
Processing based generative digital animation, 2009

In traditional Chinese and Japanese ink painting, the perfection of the brushwork is seen as coming from a spiritual resonance between the artist and what they are painting. Mosumi explores the craft of brushwork through code. Is it possible to show the spiritual side through code also?

Watching Mosumi, you can visualise the parallels between the rules which create forms in nature and those used by digital artists to create generative organic imagery.


Body Paint
Mehmet Akten
C++ and openFrameworks based interactive installation, 2009

Your movement in front of this projection triggers Mehmet's programme to splash, drip and stroke virtual paint onto the screen. It creates even more expressive effects when multiple people play with, collaborate on or undermine each other's paintings.

Tools like openFrameworks are designed to enable people who aren't computer programmers to use technology creatively. This work extends this idea so that you too can create using technology and the simplest of tools, your body.


Software as Furniture
Daniel Brown
Generative animation on crockery, 2005
Commissioned by The British Council for the touring exhibition
'My World'

Imagine a future where if you order a new plate, table or even a building, you could be in control and customise its design using digital technologies like those in this exhibition.

Software As Furniture investigates the use of technology for generating surface patterns through merging maths and design. It questions how our future homes could be forever changing, as technology allows all surfaces to have a visual function.


Foldable Fractal
David Dessens
Laser cut cardboard from digitally generated fractal imagery, 2008

Fractals are patterns where each element of the image is made up of smaller units of a similar shape; this relationship continues however closely you look. In nature these occur everywhere from snowflakes to mountain ranges.

This work was cut according to a fractal pattern generated by David. The laser which cut the card was driven by the fractal he had generated. The boxes were then folded by hand.


Cloud-Like
Daniel Widrig
CNC milled foam, 2009
With thanks to Filippo Moroni

We have all enjoyed watching the sky and finding shapes and meaning in the drifting forms we see. Daniel used computer models of how clouds are shaped by wind and weather to fix a moment of cloud-like transience in this sculpture.

Although the computer driven CNC milling machine used extremely detailed information to cut the sculpture, the surface has been left rough to suggest the temporary and fleeting beauty of clouds.


About the Artists

Mehmet Akten is a visual artist, musician and engineer based in London. He focuses on traditional design and aesthetics, as well as programmatic design, generative systems and natural human-computer interaction. Mehmet utilises technology to create emotional and memorable experiences. Founder of the London based studio The Mega Super Awesome Visuals Company, his work ranges from large-scale interactive installations and performances to online works and mobile applications.

Recently Mehmet has exhibited installations and performances at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Royal Festival Hall, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, Ars Electronica and  Glastonbury Festival. He has also worked with organisations such as onedotzero, BBC Philharmonic, The Rambert Dance Company and Streetwise Opera as well as brands such as Adidas, Apple, Rolls-Royce and Toyota. As an open-source advocate, a lot of his source-code and experiments are documented on his blog.

Work: www.msavisuals.com
Experiments and blog: www.memo.tv


Daniel Brown is a designer, programmer and artist, specialising in the fields of Creative Digital Technology and Interactive Design and Applied Arts.

Daniel combines his background in research and commercial based programming for internet, mobile, scalable systems and user experience design, with traditional solutions for Creative/Artistic Direction, working for internationally renowned brands.

Since 1999, Daniel has been chosen by Internet Business Magazine as one of the top 10 internet designers; was one of Creative Review's 'Stars of the New Millennium'; and more recently represented the best of British design as one of the exhibitors in the Design Council's 'Great Expectations' show in New York and the British Council's 'Great Brits' show in Milan / Tokyo.

Acknowledged as a pioneer in the new media field, Daniel's original experimental works are now archived in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
www.danielbrowns.com

David Dessens is a generative artist know as Sanch. He does most of his work with vvvv, software from the vvvv group (vvvv.org). It is a toolkit for real time video synthesis. It is designed to facilitate the handling of large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video that can interact with many users simultaneously.

www.sanchtv.com

Golan Levin develops artefacts and events exploring new modes of reactive expression. His work focuses on the design of systems for the creation, manipulation and performance of simultaneous image and sound; part of a more general inquiry into the formal language of interactivity and code.

Through performances, digital artefacts, and virtual environments, often created with a variety of collaborators, Levin applies creative twists to digital technologies that highlight our relationship with machines, make visible our ways of interacting with each other, and explore the intersection of abstract communication and interactivity. Levin has exhibited widely in Europe, America and Asia.
Levin studied at MIT Media Laboratory, where he studied in the Aesthetics and Computation Group. Presently Levin is Director of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Associate Professor of Electronic Time-Based Art at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also holds Courtesy Appointments in the School of Computer Science and the School of Design.

www.flong.com

William Ngan (in 140 characters) Grew up in HK. Studied in UK. A Canadian with US green card. MA RCA. Microserf. 6xComputer, 1xWife. Love xbox, hate gym. Many futile dreams.

www.metaphorical.net


C E B Reas lives and works in Los Angeles. He focuses on defining processes and translating them into images. He is an associate professor and chair of the department of Design | Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles.

REAS has exhibited his work internationally at institutions including The Cooper-Hewitt Museum (New York), and the National Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design (Oslo), at independent venues and at festivals including Sonar (Barcelona), Ars Electronica (Linz), and Microwave (Hong Kong). He has lectured at institutions including University of Applied Arts Vienna, The Royal Academy of Art (The Hague), and the NTT ICC (Tokyo), and at artist-run spaces including Machine Project (Los Angeles) and Atelier Nord (Oslo).

With Ben Fry, REAS initiated processing.org in 2001. Processing is an open source programming language and environment for creating images, animation, and interaction. In September 2007, they published Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists, a 736 page comprehensive introduction to programming within the context of visual media (MIT Press).

www.reas.com
www.processing.org


Daniel Widrig studied architecture in Germany and the United Kingdom. After graduating from the Architectural Association in London with a Master's Degree in Architecture and Urbanism in 2006 , he joined Zaha Hadid Architects where he was working on the design of projects such as the Performing Arts Centre in Abu Dhabi and the extension of the Haram Mosque in Mecca. He also worked on a series of acclaimed interiors and products with Zaha Hadid.

Since establishing his studio in London, he is working on architectural competitions, gaming environments, products, sculptural objects and experimental furniture.

His work has won several awards such as the FEIDAD Merit Award 2006, the Swiss Arts Award 2007 and has been internationally published and exhibited. In 2008 Daniel Widrig won the Rome Prize awarded by the German Government and is currently artist in residence at the German Academy, Villa Massimo in Rome.

www.danielwidrig.com

Documentation of the Code:Craft late opening event:



There was a special late night opening of Code:Craft on 12 Feb as part of Sonic Materialities, an evening of sound and light performances and installations at the Winter Garden and the Millennium Gallery.

Other events and workshops linked with Code:Craft:

We Love Technology
Sonic Materialities
Meet the Artist - Mehmet Akten
Digital Craft Workshop
Digital Craft for Kids
Butterflies Workshop

Last Updated 2 April 2010, 3:46pm by Lovebytes.