Media Release |
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For immediate release Walter Phillips Gallery opens
Database Imaginary
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 13 – 7 p.m.
The opening will feature a performance piece by Swipe (artists Beatriz da Costa, Jamie Schulte, and Brooke Singer) — guests will be asked to present their driver’s licenses when ordering drinks at the event, and will get a printout of the personal information encoded on their licenses. It plays with the idea of license scanning, an increasingly common but little-understood practice that happens in bars, convenience stores, and police cars all over North America. The performance represents the co-opting of personal information that people unwittingly experience in today’s computerized society. “When you check in at the airport, shop online, check the local weather, get lost in phone system hell, get your receipt at the supermarket, surf the Web, these are all activities that rely on a database,” Dietz says. The works in Database Imaginary suggest the ways in which every interaction today, and many economic, political, and social relationships are structured by databases. We are familiar with traditional forms of art, whether in paintings, novels or plays. This exhibition suggests that the ubiquitous database could be, or already has, emerged as a cultural form. The exhibition presents evocative imaginings of the world made possible through the systematic organization of data. The 23 projects and 33 artists in this international traveling exhibition all bring a different focus to the topic. Database Imaginary is interactive, presenting a number of internet-based projects that invite users to generate content, as well as films, prints, and installations. It includes historically significant works in information collection and distribution, such as Hans Haacke’s Visitor Survey (1971), one of the first uses of a functioning computer by an artist in an art gallery, shown in Canada here for the first time. Other works include a recreation of Muntadas’s File Room (1994), which was originally programmed at The Banff Centre, as well as, newly commissioned pieces by Edward Poitras, the University of Openess, and Mobile Scout (Marina Zurkow, Scott Paterson, Julian Bleecker). Artists in the exhibition include Cory Arcangel, Julian Bleeker, Scott Paterson and Marina Zurkow, Natalie Bookchin, Heath Bunting & Kayle Brandon, Alan Curral, Beatriz de Costa, Jamie Schulte & Brooke Singer, Hans Haacke, Graham Harwood/Mongrel, Angnes Hegedus, Pablo Helguera, Cheryl l’Hirondelle Waynohtew, Lisa Jevbratt, George Legrady, Lev Manovich, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Muntadas, Philip Pocock, Axel Heide, Onesandzeros, Gregor Stehle, Edward Poitras, David Rokeby, Warren Sack, Thomson & Craighead, University of Openess, and Angie Waller. The exhibition opening will be followed on Sunday, November 14, by a curator-led tour of Database Imaginary and three artists’ panels at 2 p.m. This exhibition was co-organized by the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina Public Library, and made possible with funding from The Canada Council for the Arts, the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, Canadian Heritage (Museums Assistance Program), and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. The reception and talks are free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome to attend. —30— Database Imaginary website | Walter Phillips Gallery website High-resolution, downloadable images from Database Imaginary
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