dayoutlast is a record of my direct engagement with mostly contemporary art, mostly Los Angelean.

As this blog has evolved since its 2010 inception, so has my perspective. What I once perceived as central within the investigation was what was central, literally, within the photographic frame that I shared here. While still an important consideration, such thinking has also given way to more peripheral considerations, ones also accompanied occasionally by text (written manifestation of thought) and the oscillations between them. What's missing here are larger unknowns surrounding issues of presentation and representation; the amount of time and space it actually takes to accomplish such first-hand observations; and the quandaries between documentation and interpretation.

Despite my attempt to communicate here with image and text what is essential in some respect about the artwork, neither representation should ever be considered a substitution for the primary viewing experience. Of course, occasionally there are exceptions.

Most of the time, these posts are merely remnants---residual fragments---from my last day out.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

"Small Wonders" @ San Jose International Airport














     Continuing the theme of Cabinet of Curiosities, this collection of artworks address the intersection of art, technology and digital culture. Work by 21 artists have been selected by San Jose’s ZER01 to explore a wide array of interpretations of the Art + Technology theme.
     A wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities was a diverse collection of objects during the Renaissance and is considered an early form of the museum. Literally meaning “wonder room,” a wunderkammer was meant to invoke a sense of wonder and often included a wide range of objects from natural history specimens such as taxidermy to geological artifacts such as precious stones to cultural objects such as handicrafts. Small Wonders presents a range of objects by mostly local artists, which evoke some of the wonder of the early history of Silicon Valley and computing in general, with projects like Eduardo Kac’s early Minitel animations or Erik Klein’s recreation of a hack of an Altair computer as well as the wonderful “curiosities” that artists create using various forms of technology from blogging pigeons to spy coconuts to the “instruction art” of Robert J. Lang’s lifelike origami peregrine falcon.


Featured Artists:
Saul Becker, Jim Campbell, Center for PostNatural History, Peter Chilvers and Sandra O’Neill, Beatriz da Costa, Amy Franceschini, Ken Goldberg and Karl F. Böhringer, Tad Hirsch, Misako Inaoka, Natalie Jeremijenko, Eduardo Kac, Erik Klein, Robert J. Lang, Christopher Locke, Frank Oppenheimer, John F. Simon, Jr., Stephanie Syjuco, Daina Taimina, Gail Wight


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