GROUP EXHIBITION
MAR 01–JUNE 11, 2023

GUI/GOOEY

Plexus Projects is pleased to present GUI/GOOEY, the first in a series of online group exhibitions exploring technological representations of the biological world. The exhibition includes artworks that examine notions of “life” and “nature” with computational, digital, and virtual tools. The selected artists reflect a range of perspectives with international representation from thirteen countries. Together they simultaneously interrogate liminal sensations and materialities of membranes and interfaces, bits and bodies.

ARTISTS
Abraham Homer US; Alt23 MT; Andrea Mikyska DE; Anni Garza-Lau, Yunuen Vladimir, Hugo Escalpelo, Lilianha Dominguez MX; Brian Zegeer US; Cezar Mocan PT; Derzu Campos MX; Dexter Callender III US; Diana Scarborough UK; Dylan Rundle US; Elaine Whittaker CA; Electric Skin TR/FR/US/ES; Ellen Bjerborn SE; Finn Dugan US; James Bascara US; Jeff Thompson US; Josh Urban CA; Katina Bitsicas, Rachel Strickland US; Keaton Fox US; Kimberlee Koym-Murteira US; Lolo Ostia US; Lizz Thabet US; Mark Ramos, Ziyang Wu US/CN; Morgan Green, Andrew Bearnot US; Nina Sumarac CY; Reid Arowood US; Ryan Woodring US; Sarah Buckius US; Yousif Alzayed, Ben Glass, Yimei Zhu US

Featured

Event Modeling – #dump
Mark Ramos & Ziyang Wu
real time simulated "landfill" inspired by IRL mineral mining and fracking environments created with a bot that scrapes Twitter to find AI-generated 3D models that are instantly dumped into the scene of #dump

RAPUNZEL
Morgan Green & Andrew Bearnot
scanned images from live-generating printer

Today (and Possibly Tomorrow)
Ryan Woodring
3d-printed candies; each a material record of an invisible chronic illness created from a ritualized 3D modeling exercise that establishes a momentary separation from an all-consuming sensation

Opossum.png
Jeff Thompson
Artist book, website, plywood box with one of the first images to be encoded in PNG format. The entire contents of the image are presented in a 968-page book, listed in the various formats required to be read by a computer.

neXXXa
Reid Arowood
procedurally generated "body" sourced from microscopic images of the artist's own physical anatomy, created with Processing

It’s All Connected
Electric Skin (Nada El Kharashi, Catherine Euale, Sequoia Fisher, Paige Perillat-Piratoine)
digital image of a light fixture generated by a source of a once living bacteria that reimagines connections between electricity, humans, awareness, mindfulness, intimacy and energy

!!! techn010ffspring !!! [v1_v9]
Sarah Buckius
digital assemblages of altered and combined imagery creating linkages between creative (technological and scientific) work of women from the present and past

Digital Flesh
Finn Dugan
digital animation

A Sudden Rush of Blood to the Skin
Josh Urban Davis
digital image created with photomanipulation and shader rendering using javascript

Pageant
Brian Zegeer
digital animation

I am hiding all year round (neighborhood test print #1)
Lizz Thabet
full-body suit from camouflage pattern based off photographs of the artist's neighborhood made with generative software, water-resistant fabric with polyester zippers

Down a Rabbit Hole
Diana Scarborough
digital video inspired by engagement with the FRUK LAB at Cambridge University linking AI bots and computer interfaces

Find The Artist
Nina Sumarac
pigment print of landscape created in less than an hour using GAN AI's “instant” art-creating generative programs prompted by the user’s text. Find The Artist asks “Who is the artist for such art: the user, the programmer, or the machine learning algorithm?”

SlimeVolt
Yousif Alzayed, Ben Glass, Yimei Zhu
collaborative bioart performance with musical instrument created with Physarum polycephalum (slime mold)

Handful
Elaine Whittaker
digitally altered scan of handheld songbird nest

Little Planets
Lolo Ostia
collaboration between generative adversarial networks and symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast

Cloud Light
Dexter Callender III
sculpture designed using GLSL shader code, Python, and Rhino+Grasshopper inspired by a cloud diffusing the setting sunlight (rays of late-afternoon sunlight pierce a cloud)

Motion Study from Belle Isle
Keaton Fox
digital video exploring video not as truth, but as art by editing home videos into moving image abstractions that invites viewers to collectively approach our archives as something to both question and behold

VIRAL 2021
Anni Garza-Lau, Yunuen Vladimir, Hugo Escalpelo, Lilianha Dominguez
cellular automata visualizations based on mutations of SARS-CoV-2 during 2021 with the form of a light sculpture activating mutations through breath and a 3D evolution based on text

Emojis are the only things left for expression
ALT23
digital image exploring techno-human relations with respect to contemporary image-making

Hemotheque, Anatomic Section Model
Dylan Rundle
sculpture (3D-printed, resin, laser-etched acrylic, aluminum) exploring the hemotheque, or the library of blood, as a critical and architectural response to an information crisis where an autonomous anti-internet disperses knowledge between locations of literacy disparity

(Cathedral)
James Bascara
digital animation with a first-person journey through a canyon from dawn to dusk, following a trail of ants

Interdimensional Anthropologies
Abraham Homer
AI-generated image of a living cabinet of curiosities with a collection of digitally rendered specimens, based on real-world references, exploring the intermingling of our universe and the role machines play in our comprehension of the natural world

Arcadia Inc.
Cezar Mocan
screen recording of a live simulation exploring nature photography as a carrier for brand ideologies with virtual beings that photograph scenic beauty for the speculative “clean landscape photography brand” Arcadia Inc.

Goddless Milieu 9
Andrea Mikyska
digital image modeling a union of the natural and the artificial

Bliss
Ellen Bjerborn
single-channel digital video exploring parallels between the soul and data—both the essence of a person, unbound by earthly vessels, where technology and spirituality glow with the same pale, blue light

Air, Water, and Conflicted Plastic
Kimberlee Koym-Murteira
video exploring intangible states of embodiment and disembodiment with skins that envolup mason jars, questioning why humans use harmful materials and the allure of consumerism, comfort, and presumed necessity

Post-objeto 4 (Post-Object 4)
Derzu Campos
digital image exploring what happens with things after meaning and use are no longer attached to them and what the future holds for objects in a post-human world

Blood Meal
Katina Bitsicas & Rachel Strickland
multimedia performance with projection mapped video and sound, illustrating the lifecycle of an organism by bringing the grotesqueries of organic development into focus

About the Curator
Laura Splan is a transdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of Science, Technology, and Culture. Her work examines paradigms and epistemologies of digital representations of the biological world and what she calls “GUI/gooey” materiality.