NEW EXHIBITION USES IMMOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY
TO COMBINE ART, SCIENCE AND POLITICS

The Warehouse Gallery presents Networked Nature, a group exhibition that inventively explores the meaning and representation of "nature," from the perspective of networked culture. The featured works employ various scientific processes and locative media, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and robotics, and take the form of installations, video and sound art. Together, they make new contributions to the discourses of extant genres, such as sculpture, earth works and landscape imagery, while also demonstrating the scientific beauty and complexity of electronic and digital art.

•  In their work Perfect View, San Jose-based collective C5 Corporation reached out to the subculture of recreational GPS users, or geo-cachers, asking them for recommendations of "sublime locales." The submitted latitudes and longitudes provided the guide points for a 33-state, 13,000-mile motorcycle expedition by a collective member who photographed the terrain at the given coordinates. The results, presented in triptychs, smartly subvert traditional representations of landscape and notions of the sublime.

About C5 Corporation: Resume; Research; Prospectus.

•  San Francisco-based collective Futurefarmers' Photosynthesis Robot is a three-dimensional model of a possible perpetual motion machine driven by phototropism - the movement of plants toward the sun. The collective's proposal, that a group of plants will very slowly propel a four wheel vehicle, is a witty take on the pressing search for new forms of energy.

About Futurefarmers: Bios; Photosynthesis Robot.

•  New York artist Shih Chieh Huang's active sound and light sculptures, RTI, are inspired by everyday household electronic devices and his studies of physical computing and robotics. In these ingenious explorations of organic systems, he creates a dynamic circulation of electricity and air: a living micro-environment.

About Shih Chieh Huang: Bio; Resume; Virgil de Voldere Gallery.

•  Junior Return, by San Francisco-based Philip Ross, is a self-contained survival capsule for one living plant. Blown glass enclosures provide a controlled hydroponic environment, where the plant's roots are submerged in nutrient-infused water, while LED lights supply the necessary illumination. The artist has drawn on two culturally divergent traditions - Chinese scholars' objects and Victorian glass conservatories - that share the belief that nature is best understood when seen through the lens of human artifice.

About Philip Ross: Resume; More about the Junior Return Project.

•  Virginia-based artist Stephen Vitiello 's Hedera(BBB) is a sprawling vine installation in which small speakers hidden between branches quietly broadcast percussive sounds woven from the speeches and private conversations of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. The work unsettles and denaturalizes our assumptions of what an appropriate soundtrack may be.

About Stephen Vitiello: Resume; Bio.

•  Creep, by Berkeley-based Gail Wight, is a hypnotic time-lapse, three screen video of the growth of fluorescent dyed slime mold. In her aetheticizing of the normally repellent, Wight creates an ode to the beauty of the color and natural growth patterns inherent in nature.

About Gail Wight: Resume; Bio; Website; More about Creep.

Networked Nature, organized by Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator for Rhizome, premiered at Foxy Production in New York City and was expanded for The Warehouse Gallery in Syracuse, NY.

The accompanying lecture on April 18 is presented by the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University.

Press Release
Viewer Comments

PRESS:
- Falconer, Morgan. "Networked Nature." Art Review, Issue 09, March 2007: 142.
- Cotter, Holland. "Networked Nature." The New York Times, 16 Friday 2007: E28.
- Davis, Ben. "Net Worth." Artnet.com, 14 February 2007.
- Saltz, Jerry. "Positively 27th Street." The Village Voice, 14 February 2007: 56.
- "Networked Nature." Featured This Week, Flavorpill NYC #344.
- Hanley, William. "On The Horizon: Our Top Ten List For 2007." Artinfo.com, 3 January 2007.
- Rushworth, Katherine. "Nature in a Networked Age." Post-Standard Stars, 27 May 2007: p. 14.
- Quaranta, Domenico. "Natura e tecnologia." Flash Art, No. 263, April-May 2007: p. 57.
- McKnight, Jenna. "Watching the grass - I mean mold - grow." Syracuse.com, 16 May 2007.