DRM: Digitally Rendered Mind

Jul 12, 2014

Curated by Nic Wilson

Artist Dakota Gearhart in attendance!

HTML, DVD, LCD, JPG: the torrent of three letter acronyms and file extensions that make up our lingua franca are so intimately woven into our daily activities, (both on and offline) we rarely consider their many meanings -- including what the acronyms literally stand for. 

“DRM” or Digital Rights Management, packs less rhetorical cache than LOL but is nevertheless an integral thread in the fabric of user experience. Though you have almost certainly interacted with (or circumvented) systems of DRM—purchasing an app on your phone, downloading new virtual weaponry to deploy on Xbox Live, falling asleep as you stream HBO GO from the comfort of your bed—DRM remains mostly surreptitiously woven into the channels and surfaces of digital interaction.

 

 

This program of new video art by 11 local, national, and international artists uncovers the ever-evolving digital parameters of human experience. Twisting architecture, an overgrown Tasmanian landscape, shamanistic virtual tours and green screens, an iPhone app commercial for the new age, Bart Simpson at his most spiritually psychedelic, and Rihanna’s seapunk prank are gathered together in this sketchbook of the digitally rendered mind.

What are the DRM ripple effects in our own mental landscape? As the plastic brain adapts to the sedentary lifestyle of today’s digital consumer, our neural networks rearrange themselves to provide maps of the devices and digital spaces that have become less extensions of the body and more actual pieces of the self. 

The works presented in DRM: Digitally Rendered Mind bring these new formations to surface: exploring these shimmering cavities, where we see the blurred reflections of the future to come (and perhaps come to better know ourselves in the present).

Featuring new work by Andreas Nicolas Fischer, Brenna Murphy, Nic Hamilton, Sara Ludy, Sabrina Ratté, Eva Papa Margariti, Manuel Fernández, Dakota Gearhart, Frieda-Raye Green, Nic Wilson and Christian Oldham

Following the screening, Troll House A/V will provide an environmental party experience conducive to reconnection with physical sensation.

DRM: DIGITALLY RENDERED MIND July 12 @Northwest Film Forum Video Flier from NNNIC WILSON on Vimeo.

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