Through the Walls

 

Through the Walls

  • Opening Reception: April 27, 6-8PM

  • Open Studios: April 28 - May 6, 12-6PM

“Through the Walls” includes two newly commissioned XR artworks that are directly inspired by, and use, Cavafy’s original poetry: “Walls” by Ali Santana; and “Ekphrasis” by Matthew Niederhauser & Marc Da Costa. This program is part of the Onassis Foundation's "Archive of Desire": A Festival Inspired by the Poet C. P. Cavafy, a multi-venue, multidisciplinary celebration of the internationally influential Greek poet, curated by composer Paola Prestini.

More about the exhibition:

Ali Santana’s “Walls” is an interactive, audiovisual installation that reimagines Constantine P. Cavafy's poem of the same name as an immersive, experimental Hip Hop experience. In this installation, participants must work together to solve an interactive rhythm poem. By activating a sequence of beats, rhythms, and stanzas that combine key elements of Cavafy’s original poem, participants transform the installation into a wholly unique and expansive fractal world. Onassis ONX Member Matt McCorkle has created original atmospheric audio of the experience. New York Emcee ELUCID lends his distinctive voice to Cavafy’s original text, and engages the Greek poet in a call-and-response across time.

alisantana.com | mattmccorkle.com

Credits:

  • Ali Santana, Director & Lead Artist

  • Matt McCorkle, Sound Artist & Lead Collaborator

  • Jazia Hammoudi, Producer

  • Ariel Nevarez, Experiential Interface Designer

  • ELUCID, Emcee

  • Kate Stevenson, Creative Technologist & Immersive Game Design Partner

  • Yuan Peng, Creative Technologist & Immersive Game Design Partner

“Ekphrasis” is a machine learning video work and artistic research project devised by Matthew Niederhauser and Marc Da Costa. It explores how poetry can illuminate the algorithmic systems that form the backdrop of our lives and, increasingly, shape what we feel and imagine. In the work, C. P. Cavafy's poetry becomes a filter and prompt to interrogate the visuality of today’s machine learning tools. These technologies are the magic sorcerers of the moment, spooking and exciting us, yet drawing their material not from a supernatural world beyond, but instead from the zeitgeist of images and text that live online.

C. P. Cavafy’s poetic corpus can provide a glimpse into how artificially intelligent systems attempt to construe and interpret the more subjective edges of language. Edges that can both inspire and confound. Our results will be cataloged into a printed compendium which will also act as a codex to an installation that will cycle through machine learning responses to his work, including AI-driven readings and other visual renderings of select poems.

marcdacosta.com | matthewniederhauser.com

Credits:

  • Marc Da Costa, Artist

  • Matthew Niederhauser, Artist

 
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