{"id":215896,"date":"2021-09-06T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=215896"},"modified":"2021-09-09T13:18:55","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T17:18:55","slug":"university-galleries-reopen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2021\/09\/06\/university-galleries-reopen\/","title":{"rendered":"University Galleries Reopen With \u2018Tech\/Know\/Future\/ From Slang to Structure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Montclair State University Galleries<\/a> are back with a new director and the first in-person exhibition in nearly two years.<\/p>\n

Tech\/Know\/Future\/ From Slang to Structure<\/a> runs September 14 through December 11 with an opening reception on Thursday, September 23. Dynamic works of art will be installed around campus and in gallery settings, bringing art to the University community in surprising and inventive ways.<\/p>\n

Under the direction of University Galleries Director Megan C. Austin, the exhibition is curated by Tom Leeser, director of the Art and Technology Program and the Center for Integrated Media at CalArts, who has brought together a group of innovative artists including: Morehshin Allahyari, Salome Asega, Nancy Baker Cahill, Stephanie Dinkins, Carla Gannis, Taehee Kim, LoVid, Amelia Marzec, Olivia Mole, Sondra Perry and Casey Reas.<\/p>\n

These 11 diverse cross-disciplinary artists present a critical response to technological systems within art addressing the issues of identity, history and abstraction, placing the viewer at the intersection of the past, present and future. The artists use their creative practices to establish new relationships between technology, knowledge and time through augmented reality, artificial intelligence, sound, video, textiles and works on paper.<\/p>\n

The show is part of Austin\u2019s vision to revamp Montclair State University Galleries programming to focus on exhibiting new and timely work made by contemporary artists who comment on the current state of social, political and visual culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with artists and curators whose work provokes conversation around relevant issues that impact University students, faculty, staff and the greater community presents a unique opportunity for an academic institution to explore the contemporary art world and how the ideas presented by artists connect across disciplines and differences,\u201d says Austin.<\/p>\n

Leeser adds, \u201cTo date, my artistic, academic and curatorial practices have been built on creating
\nmomentary experiences of art and technology within a critical framework of change. I\u2019m very conscious of the accelerated states of flux within our political and cultural spheres, but the events of this particular moment caused me to pause \u2013 to reflect and to reconsider how we perceive time within the urgent task of generating greater diversity and social equality.<\/p>\n

Tech\/Know\/Future\/ From Slang to Structure is an assembly of artists and writers who produce genre-bending work, Leeser says.\u201cTo me, they represent what [Italian cultural theorist] Bifo Berardi calls the \u2018complex constellations that comprise our present.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition draws inspiration from the essay \u201cIconic Treatise Gothic Futurism” by the late writer, artist and musician Rammellzee, and Berardi\u2019s book After the Future.<\/p>\n

Rammellzee designed a \u201ctechnological language\u201d to challenge the art world\u2019s conventional approaches to image-making and writing. Berardi defines the future as a \u201ccultural construction\u201d of a materialistic, superficial, 20th-century society. He declares the mythology of the future is over, with the rise of global capitalism and its powerful \u201cimaginary effects” to blame. Berardi\u2019s post-future is a dematerialized, infinite present, a virtual space and time.<\/p>\n

\"augmented
Installation photograph of Morehshin Allahyari\u2019s work She Who Sees The Unknown: Aisha Qandisha, 2018 on view in the Segal Gallery. (Photo by Cary Whittier)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the highlights of the exhibition:<\/p>\n