In collaboration with The Consulate General of France in San Francisco, Cultural and Scientific Services of the French Embassy in the United States, French Tech San Francisco, l’Institut Français and French American Cultural Society, re.riddle is pleased to present After Tomorrow, an exhibition exploring the intersections between art, technology and science. The exhibition will look at the ways in which these interrelationships shape, augment and/or modify our existence and the human experience.
Installed in the private residence of the Consul General de France, the exhibition showcases the work of Hongtao Zhou, Boris Labbé, Summer Lee, Mark Baugh-Sasaki, and Angelique Cheronnet. Opening night during the private reception will feature the performance art piece á Dieu by Summer Lee with Laura Boles Faw and the United States premiere of Boris Labbé’s animated video Kyrielle.
The exhibition will run from March 14 through August 31, 2018. For more information about the artists and to make an appointment for visiting Monday-Friday 10am-4pm, please contact Alex Penn at aedwards@reriddle.com. Limited appointments will be available.
By conflating two-dimensional text and 3D object in his Textscapes, Hongtao Zhou simultaneously recalls the history of printmaking along with contemporary innovations in 3D printing. The various heights of protruding text form into cityscapes of dense urban metropolises such as Paris, San Francisco, Shanghai and New York. The text functions as readable maps, both visually echoing the realistic skyline as well as describing the cities’ demographic data and calling attention to the notions of space and/or lack thereof.
Kyrielle consists of a 10-minute HD animated video installation that comments on the themes of loneliness, encounter, and connection and conflict between individuals. Coupling vivid, layered colors with quirky abstract figures, the video presents these themes in a playful, improvised and dance-like tableaux. A visual narrative unfolds, depicting moments of chaos, mathematical loops and palindromes.
Captured exclusively through the social media platform Instagram, Angelique Cheronnet’s photography examines the interrelationships between the human subject and the urban environment via modern modes of communication. The photographic documentation of moments from everyday life in the 21st century via technological social platforms calls attention to the ways in which these seemingly spontaneous “moments” are shaped by an awareness of a built-in audience, the notions of immediacy, public accessibility, response and interaction.
Mark Baugh-Sasaki’s smoke drawings represent his combined interests in art, technology and science. The artist gathers objects and ephemera from sites which are significant to his personal memories and experiences. By “smoking” the objects that are placed precariously on the surface of the paper, Baugh-Sasaki creates ethereal, volumetric outlines and inverted silhouettes. The smoke image and the burnt remnants of the objects operate as indexes of the artist’s own actions, memories and personhood.
Summer Lee and Laura Boles Faw will enact a performance using the vantage point of the Consul General’s residence, which overlooks the City. Using “invisible writing” and flash code, Lee and Faw will investigate the intersections of art and technology in relationship to the themes of translation, communication, distance and the loss of geography.
In their performance, á Dieu, Summer Lee and Laura Boles Faw confront feelings of loss in their attempt to connect across distances via various technologies. The performance will address themes of translation, communication, distance, loss of geography/community and connectivity.
In a time when many artists have been pushed out of the Bay Area due to rising costs of living, Lee and Boles Faw celebrate the arts community that remains here and consider the ways in which technology connects and distances in spite of its promises.
The performance uses elemental forms of technology to make claims. The content of the letters, written in invisible ink, are personal reflections of Boles Faw's time living in San Francisco; they function simultaneously as love letters and farewell messages to her beloved city, artistic community and fellow artist Lee. Positioned in the window of the Consul General of France’s residence and overlooking Boles Faw’s neighborhood of thirteen years, Lee will reveal the message and then use Morse code to flash the message out into the city. Boles Faw has invited her artist friends and colleagues located in different parts of the city to signal back to Lee with flashes of light. The flashes of light not only indicate that they have received the message but also proclaim their presence and dedication to the vibrant Bay Area arts community. The participants are artists, arts educators, students, curators, and others who are involved in the arts, and who Boles Faw considers the beacons of artistic determination.
Lee and Boles Faw contend that this signal is one of hope but should also be a warning for what could potentially be lost if new technologies (and the emphasis on technology over all else) create more distancing than thoughtful, genuine, and nuanced connection. With its use of more primitive technology, à Dieu requires both its participants and viewers to slow down and consider its impending failure, highlighting the speed of life/communication in which modern technology has entrained us.