Between September and February I had the fun job of working with Jon Smeathers as curatorial mentor on his show ‘Embraced in the Loving Arms of an Algorithm v1.1’ which has just opened at
@contemporaryarttasmania in Hobart.
Jon’s goal was to develop a curatorial algorithm whose procedural indifference would sidestep traditional humanist taste-driven methodologies that tend to 'perpetuate elitist conceptions of artistic value or contain vast knowledge gaps' to generate something an audience would not usually encounter in a gallery space, whilst simultaneously 'caring' for its artists-inputs (responding to the etymological injunction embedded in the word 'curate', from the Latin cūrō meaning 'to take care of', 'look after', 'ensure', or 'heal as well as govern') by shielding them from the institutional labour of responding to gallery rubrics, writing acquittals, fulfilling funding criteria, etc..
The output produced by this first iteration (running on Zachary Doney, Grace Gamage, Adelphie He
@adelphiephie , and Billie Rankin) is completely delirious in the best possible way—producing the kind of delirium that can only be arrived at through a very rigid and exacting process. It is also surprisingly silly and cute. I don’t know if this is a latent property of the local art scene that has been amplified by the algorithm or an emergent effect of the process itself, but either way, the show it has has produced is a welcome intervention in a global art scene rife with ponderous, gloomy, and ineffectual critiques of contemporary algorithmic culture. Go see it if you are in the vicinity!
Exhibition: /programs/embraced-in-the-loving-arms-of-an-algorithm-v1-1/
Workshops: /programs/embraced-in-the-loving-arms-of-an-algorithm-v1-1/
Public conversation between Jon and I (video): /watch?v=NE3gNVU4VCk
