Run the Code
What happens when code and data become the raw materials of art?
In Run the Code, contemporary artists harness algorithms and generative AI models to create powerful, thought-provoking works that explore nature, art history, internet culture, and human behavior. Showcasing highlights from the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation’s Digital and Media Art Collection, this immersive exhibition transforms digital information into sensory works of art.
Included are some of the most important digital and generative artists working today: Refik Anadol, Daniel Canogar, Jenny Holzer, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, teamLab, Siebren Versteeg, Leo Villareal, and Marina Zurkow, among others.
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Public_Public_Address: A Nationwide Virtual ProtestPublic_Public_Address is an ongoing, 24/7, national virtual protest in support of and in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The ongoing protest stream features video submissions of both supporters who are unable to place themselves at physical risk and those who can protest in person.
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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Art 21 segment highlighted in artnet, “We as Artists Need to Intervene”Known for his large-scale, interactive installations, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer uses contemporary technologies like computerized surveillance, heart-rate sensors, and robotics to create participatory experiences and platforms for public participation and connection.
“Public Public Address” featured on CNN: This website helps people with illnesses and disabilities participate in Black Lives Matter protestsHigh-profile killings of several Black people by police sparked nationwide protests this summer, with marchers demanding police reform and racial justice. Jason Lazarus, Siebren Versteeg and Stephanie Syjuco founded Public Public Address on September 1 to help people with illnesses and disabilities participate in these Black Lives Matter protests without putting their lives at risk.
‘Email Exhibit! Yours Sincerely, Siebren Versteeg and bitforms’ by Charlotte Kent for CLOTSiebren Versteeg’s In%20Memory is an email; a checklist of speculative objects, a series of links, and a PDF; together creating a daisy-chain as exhibition... bitforms’s webpage for the exhibit provides a space to leave your email address, after which you will receive the email that is the show. It is a charmingly irreverent approach to exhibition possibilities while also quite seriously invigorating our musings on how we might exhibit work digitally.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer featured in the new season of Art21Lozano-Hemmer creates participatory artworks that utilize technology like robotics, heart-rate sensors, and computerized surveillance tools in order to facilitate human connection. Technologically sophisticated yet deceptively simple in their execution, Lozano-Hemmer’s spectacular, immersive works are often installed in public places as a means of transforming these sites into forums for civic engagement.
Daniel Canogar, Loom: Streamingbitforms gallery is proud to present a first of its kind, cloud-based, 24/7 stream of generative software-based art, presented in collaboration with Small Data Industries.
Daniel Canogar’s Data Abstractions, Art in AmericaAfter three months with the internet as my primary portal to the outside world, I was intrigued by the premise of Daniel Canogar’s latest work: “to expose the hidden threads of data networks.” Inside bitforms gallery, six large, wavelike metal structures covered with modular flexible LED screens hang on the walls or sit on the floor, all part of the artist’s “Billow” series (2020).
Daniel Canogar, “Billow”, Artforum Critic’s PickDaniel Canogar’s sinuous, ripple-like sculptures emanate colorful LED light in “Billow,” his solo exhibition here. It’s no accident that his bending architectural forms mimic hills, valleys, and mountains: Their slumbering shapes make the works’ cascading waves all the more hypnotic.
Mesocosm (Northumberland, UK) by Marina Zurkow: Streamingbitforms gallery is proud to present Mesocosm (Northumberland UK) by Marina Zurkow as the third piece in a series of streaming generative artworks, presented in collaboration with Small Data Industries.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer on Seductive Participation and the Oppression of Metrics, Art in AmericaCan an artist engage with surveillance technologies without being complicit in their use for control and oppression? Audiences tend to treat interactive works as a fun spectacle, a chance to take a selfie. So how do artists clarify their position? How do they present their work as commentary, rather than mere reproduction?
Virtual Opening of Billow by Daniel Canogarbitforms gallery is pleased to present our fourth solo exhibition with Daniel Canogar. The data-sphere is a driving force of society and the economy, despite its invisible nature. This lack of visibility can make it difficult to comprehend how information affects daily life. Billow attempts to expose the hidden threads of data networks.
ARTECHOUSE Q&A: Refik Anadol“Arts has this quality of imagination. Artists are always inspired by the technology around them, they always try to use them in the maximum capacity of their imagination,” notes artist, Refik Anadol, the visionary behind Infinite Space and Machine Hallucinations.
Wet Logic reviewed by Louis Bury for Hyperallergic From behind bitforms gallery’s glass facade, an artistic toilet bowl (“Toilet Joke I,” 2020) beckons passers-by into Wet Logic, Sarah Rothberg’s and Marina Zurkow’s digitized meditation on water’s unearthliness.
Wet Logic, an exhibition by Sarah Rothberg and Marina Zurkow, opens at bitforms galleryWet Logic presents a model of the world organized according to a wet, oceanic ideology rather than a dry, land-based paradigm. This is a world that manifests the circuitous nature of time and the enmeshment of humans to the planet. Rothberg and Zurkow present a series of systems that further human connection to oceans by way of action and imagination.
Can Computers Dream? Refik Anadol Explores The Future of Artificial IntelligenceFrom data sharing to hyperreality, Refik Anadol’s new installation at Light Art Space explores how our world will transform as humans and computers come closer together. Words by Alice Bucknell.
Artsy names Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Border Tuner among best public art of 2019“Border Tuner, a timely and ephemeral light and sound installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, created a unique and powerful platform for interconnectivity and public participation at the U.S.–Mexico border. By melding performance, robotic technology, and social discourse, Lozano-Hemmer’s large-scale installation shared a lesser-told story by visibly highlighting positive counter-narratives about El Paso and Ciudad Juárez’s interdependent culture. A challenging public project to achieve, Lozano-Hemmer’s piece was able to brilliantly and poetically render intimate bridges between strangers standing in two different cities and countries that share so much.”—Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator, Public Art Fund
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer interviewed on BBC regarding his new work, Border TunerImagine huge searchlights which can be seen over a ten mile, 15 kilometer radius talking to one another across two countries. This is exactly what electronic media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is creating this November between Ciudad Juárez in Mexico and El Paso in Texas. Called "Border Tuner," the project will see enormous bridges of light connecting the US-Mexico border for the first time.
Siebren Versteeg, In%20Memory, now liveIn In%20Memory, playful references to painting, ready-mades, and installation inquire toward the experience of isolation within our technological present. In effort to participate yet emancipate from the expectation of an artist to create “things,” In%20Memory advances viewing room culture with deep zoom technology while challenging visitors to engage in a meaningful temporal experience. The exhibition is accompanied by an essay by Katie Geha.
Marina Zurkow’s exhibition The Thirsty Bird opening at the Contemporary Art Museum St. LouisMarina Zurkow focuses her work on the intersection of nature and culture, offering wry and pointed critiques of this perilously dysfunctional relationship. The Thirsty Bird offers parallel narratives on two essential, yet incompatible elements: oil and water.