Beyond the Interface

Beyond the Interface is an exhibition and series of events presented by Furtherfield, where leading international contemporary artists explore the technical devices that pervade our lives.

"The interface is the sense organ of the computer, whereby it becomes part of human culture" - Søren Bro Pold [1]

How much of our life do we spend in front of screens? Typically young adults in the UK spend more than a third of their waking lives watching TV or using computers, smartphones and tablets.[2] These glowing rectangles are just one interface through which we contribute to the growing global human-machine network.

Nowadays a multitude of sensors proliferate in these same devices along with the chips and transmitters that are embedded in all consumer goods. Our actions are tracked, our utterances and exchanges are monitored, and our behaviours inform the design of future media, systems and products. This is the cybernetic loop.

The interface is the boundary across which information is exchanged, causing a transformation in one or both sides of that boundary. Between individuals, corporations and states; beliefs and disciplines; components of computer systems; or machines and living beings. Interfaces have always been a site of control, hidden in plain view: symbolic, social or technological. Seduced and habituated, we forget to question how we are dominated and reprogrammed by the very facilities that are supposed to free us as part of the digital revolution. Lori Emerson suggests this is an "overwhelming push to disempower users/consumers with closed devices". [2]

As you approach Furtherfield Gallery in the middle of London's Finsbury Park, you will notice that the external walls have been transformed into an immersive installation of lush, rippling images of water lilies, leaves and other organic forms. Giverny Remediated is an installation of performative prints by Nathaniel Stern (US) continuing his "Compressionism" series of work. Part of Stern's Compressionist series, this work references Monet's immersive painting installation Water Lilies, painted a century ago, only in this case the artist has strapped a hacked scanner to his body in order to create the works.

In a new commission Stern will create "Rippling Images of Finsbury Park", a new public artwork created in the boating lake (which sits adjacent to Furtherfield Gallery). The artworks will be available to download by public USB installed in the Gallery walls as part of Dead Drop, the offline, anonymous, file sharing, peer to peer, network.

Beyond The Interface - London is a remix of an exhibition co-curated by Furtherfield with Julian Stadon for ISMAR 2014, the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, that took place in Munich in September 2014.

NOTES
[1] Interface Criticism, Aesthetics Beyond Buttons edited by Christian Ulrik Andersen & Søren Bro Pold
[2] 'Against the Frictionless Interface! An Interview with Lori Emerson'

Beyond the Interface - London

Furtherfield Gallery