cell tango

An exhibit called Cell Tango is currently on view at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley. From artists George Legrady and Angus Forbes, it is a computer program running in real time that takes photos submitted by email (to submit send the photo as an attachment with related tags in the title of the email to pix@celltango.org) from anywhere in the world and pairs them with other photos from the internet with similar tags. They appear in webs and clusters based on the key words.


George Legrady spoke about the project at the opening earlier in the semester. He talked about how he believed it was art because he had created the program that was executing his idea. He also brought up the point that the project is open to the whole world, but generally only people who are involved in the community in some way are interested in submitting their photos. Along those lines, there is no editing or censorship involved - pictures go up within about 2 minutes - and so far 'they've been lucky.'

As I sat there I saw many different clusters of photos rotate through the screen, but I found myself thinking how much more interesting the work would be if there were more photos. Then again it is such a small community that I was directly engaged with many of the images that appeared.

Although technically they are supposed to be photos taken from a cell phone, I decided to submit a couple of my own from last year:

tags: friends, party, high school throwback

tags: holidays, trees, friendship

The implications of this work are very important as our society leans more toward technology. At what point to we draw the line between technology and art? Is designing a computer program enough?

It is also a social experiment - after the opening talk I spoke with one of my professors about how we both had the urge to whip out cameras right there and take a picture of the artist talking about the work to submit to the project. It supports the idea of common associations and the shared human experience. And I love that it is always in flux.

tangential fountain

And in case you weren't convinced about Duchamp's Fountain being fundamentally important in modern art, take a look at this still of a video by Nauman from his early work in minimalist video Self-Portrait as a Fountain:

In the video loop, Nauman recorded himself spewing water out of his mouth over and over as a statement of physical endurance, thereby making himself the art object. The video still exemplifies the effect that Duchamp had on art even decades later by demonstrating an artist's struggle with the meaning of the original work - it shows how much Duchamp was very much a part of the collective unconscious of artists almost 50 years later.

leave the land alone

Bruce Nauman is an internationally recognized artist, who represented the U.S. at the Venice Biennale this year and was furthermore presented with the prestigious Golden Lion award. He has been a presence in the art world since the 1960s, and has been very influential in sculpture and minimalist video.

Nauman works in a variety of mediums, but his signature pieces are generally executed in neon lighting. He often uses text in his work.


On this past Saturday, September 12, Nauman finally executed a sculpture that he conceived in the late 1960s. Leave the Land Alone 1969/2009 is a commentary on the use of natural resources, but even more than that, a call to action - or inaction, as the case may be. The execution consisted of several planes which flew above the Pasadena, CA area and spelled out the words 'LEAVE THE LAND ALONE' in puffs of smoke. The planes retraced the original path a number of times throughout the execution.


The associations that I immediately make are those of pollution and smoke in the air, and the idea that pollution 'disappears' into the atmosphere and thus out of the minds of many. The dots of smoke are digital looking in a way, and remind me of those ticker signs. Even more so I think of the idea of fleeting support for a cause, and the possibility that if you do not understand the message then the entire event make seem confusing and unsettling. Apparently, some spectators even mistook the event for a protest set by a religious organization against intervening in the CA forest fires.

The sky that day made for a beautiful backdrop, and I like the combination of the playful puffs and the assertive message.