Andrew Blanton Archives - Morehshin Allahyari

May 22, 2014

بیت بر ثانیه – Bitrates (2014)

Bitrates is the first New Media Art exhibition in the city of Shiraz in Iran, curated and organized by artists Morehshin Allahyari and Mani Nilchiani, hosted by Dar-ol-Hokoomeh Project at Shiraz Artist House. With a vision to create a space dedicated to emerging artistic practices, workshops, talks, presentations and exhibitions, Dar-ol-Hokoomeh Project (co-founded by Mohsen Hazrati and Milad Forouzandeh) seeks to expose the creative community and general public to the potentials of new technologies and New Media theory and practice.

In their curation process, Morehshin and Mani have selected artists that each use variety of digital tools, material, and software in their works to present a specific category and technological aesthetics of new media art; from artgame, creative coding, experimental 3D animation to glitch art and animated GIF. The significance of the term “Bit Rate” is two fold: On the one hand, every digital art work at one point or the other needs to navigate the bottleneck of “bits”. Ideas turn into bits, bits are streamed over a network, to a screen, or to a tangible output such as a 3D printer to form an experience. While simultaneously, as a generation who sought their exposure to the world outside through slow, clunky dial-up modems, our interaction with the world at large was at the mercy of “bit rate”. بیت بر ثانیه (Bitrates) draws attention to these ideas through the presentation of the work that engages and explores technology and internet as a medium.

Featuring: Morehshin Allahyari, Benjamin Bacon, Andrew Blanton, Alex Myers, Brenna Murphy, Ramsey Nasser, Mani Nilchiani, Daniel Rourke, Alfredo Salzar-Caro, Angela Washko.

A lecture and a Q & A session will be held with Morehshin Allahyari and Mani Nilchiani at Daralhokoomeh on Sunday May 25th, 6:30 PM.

Website: http://daralhokoomeh.com

***GIFbites is one of the projects of Bitrates exhibition (curated by Daniel Rourke). For the opening of Bitrates, a selected version of this project was displayed in the gallery, followed by a complete showcase of all the GIFs for the GIFbites exhibition, May 30th-June 6.

Morehshin Allahyari – Bitrates

Morehshin Allahyari - Your Night/My Day Project

February 8, 2012

Your Night / My Day Project (2011-2013)

Your Night/My Day is an online and digital intercultural collaborative art project between artists in Iran and the U.S. which began in the Fall of 2010. Curated by Morehshin Allahyari and Eden Ünlüata, this project explores the process of cultural exchange- or lack thereof – between Iran and the United States. The project employs digital media and online collaboration and serves as a bridge to create an intercultural dialogue and exhibition.

In Your Night/My Day, the process of art making is based on a series of invitations from the curators, called Inspiration Notes featuring topics that are commonly referenced in discussions about culture. Through the Inspiration Notes, teams in each country write instructions in their native language for the opposite team to perform and document. However, before the opposite team receives the instructions, they are sent electronically through an artist/editor from Turkey who put them through Google Translate (Farsi>Turkish>English / English>Turkish>Farsi) and edits them as she sees fit. The translated works then follow the same path back with the Turkish artist editing the artwork at will. Using this multi-part series, we are not only deciphering and depicting the nature of the dysfunctional dialogue between Iranian and American cultures, but through art, we are seeking to fnd paths that may lead to a better understanding of each other as human beings. Your Night/My Day presents the fruit of these two-years; a collection of intercultural pieces designed to celebrate cultural differences and find harmony through art. Participating artists are: Andrew Blanton, Negin Ehtesabian, Zeren Göktan, Patrick Lichty, Vana Nabipour, and Allie Pohl.

For the first time at the University of North Texas, Your Night/My Day displayed the result of this collaboration to the public, beginning March 22 until April 3 at UNT on the Square. Your Night/My Day will be on a travelling tour for the next one year. More info soon. For more information about this project please contact: morehshin@gmail.com or uneden@gmail.com.

***Your Night/ My Day has been brought to UNT by The Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute (CAMCSI). For more information about CAMCSI please visit the CAMCSI website or contact Tiffany Floyd.

Morehshin Allahyari – Your Night/My Day Project