From: "Andrew Clifford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 31 October 2007 9:56:04 PM
To: "Aotearoa Digital Arts" <[email protected]>
Subject: Fw: BLACKBOXING : Exhibition opening at Project Arts Centre
A few ideas in this Dublin exhibition pertinent to ADA, and a few
cameos from kiwis...
----- Original Message -----
From: project [EMAIL PROTECTED]
BLACKBOXING
NOV 2 - DEC 1, 2007
You are invited to the opening reception on Thursday, NOV 1 at 6PM,
and after party at SOUTHWILLIAM

Mariana Castillo Deball, L Budd et al., Rene Gabri & Ayreen Anastas,
Peter Galison & Robb Moss, Bea McMahon, Garrett Phelan, Grace Weir
and Mick Wilson
Curated by Tessa Giblin
If the term blackboxing means to accept a function or an application
but not a method(ology), what is it - both scientifically and
socially - that compels us to peer inside black-boxes?
Brought together in the exhibition Blackboxing are a number of
artists and intellectuals who have at the core of their practice a
hunger for knowledge, and from whom this term has emerged.
Our open curiosity and defiance in the face of evidence has seen the
term blackboxing expand from its origins in information technology.
It has become a broadly compelling rallying point for those hoping to
enable independence in an individual's experience of fact, truth,
absolute ideas and beliefs. By looking inside blackboxes, artists can
activate discreet bodies of knowledge - finding concrete ways to
address the increasing abstraction of complex mathematics and
physics, and building back roads into politically unstable global
scenarios where international reportage is diffused by popularising
rhetoric and smoke-screens.
The mimicry, blind faith and increasing dependence on ever-more
complex systems is changing the way we comprehend our world; although
we slavishly attempt to regenerate our systems at the rate of
development, we are at the same time loosening our conceptual grasps
on the functioning realities of these systems and cornering ourselves
into a state of acceptance.
In an interview with artist Rene Gabri, theorist Manuel de Landa
recalled his earlier experiments with code-writing, hacking and what
he now refers to as blackboxing. Applying a technique widely used in
everyday activity, he would copy a body of computer code which he
knew to function a certain way into another system in order the
replicate that function, yet utilise it towards a different end. As
Bruno Latour explains, blackboxing accounts for the moment whereby
'technical work is made invisible by its own success'.
"As a realist. I have to open as many blackboxes as I can. I have to
give accounts in terms of mechanisms" Manuel de Landa
Mariana Castillo Deball's (MEX) film Blackboxing, introduces us to
The Escape Artist, The War Magician and an inventor blinded by the
complexity of his own eye. Tracking a series of observations,
descriptions and definitions, the film illustrates the wonder of what
it is to be curious. L Budd et al. (NZ) maximise the conditions in
which telepathic exchange might occur. In an attempt to engineer a
telepathic device, four suitcases perched on top of four grey stools
conduct a quasi-conversation, while the suitcases' strange songs
compel us to ponder the possibility of such a device. Rene Gabri
(IRN) & Ayreen Anastas' (PLE) video works, What Everybody Knows, is a
play on what everybody possibly ignores or hides from themselves.
Their research and experiences in Palestine and Israel resulted in a
series of videos where characters emerge and lead us towards a deeper
awareness of the situation in Palestine, punctuated by poignant and
alarming personal stories. Co-directors Peter Galison (USA),
Pellegrino University Professor of the History of Science and of
Physics at Harvard University and cinematographer Robb Moss' (USA)
trailer to their film Secrecy, explores the relationship between
secrecy and security - 'We live in a world where the production of
secret knowledge dwarfs the production of open knowledge'. With the
film ready for release in January of 2008, the trailer acts as
another Pandora's Box. Bea McMahon's (IRL) background in maths and
mathematical physics is used to great effect to illustrate complex
theories involving space and time. In a new film featuring two
turtles attempting to understand the numerical relationships between
their own, animated beings, and the coded figures displayed above
them, McMahon introduces everyday signifiers such as car number
plates in a didactic and humorous animation. Garrett Phelan's (IRL)
spray-painted black void looms over the gallery. Trapped in the dense
blackness is an object for communication, a receiver, or nothing at
all. In recent years Phelan has focussed his practice around
extensive explorations into 'the formation of opinion' and 'the
absolute present'. The Penrose non-periodic tile is the subject of
Grace Weir's (IRL) installation, and we are treated to the evidence
of her own efforts to complete the unsolvable puzzle. It is a
mathematical certainty that the repetition of these specific tiles
will never result in a repeating pattern - while they may lock in
together, which is in itself a formidable challenge - the closer one
comes to solving the puzzle the closer they more they activate its
futility. As Weir says - 'is that not a portrait of the universe?'.
Mick Wilson(IRL) splices together a number of disparate voices,
asking what it is about their representation which causes them to
evoke such irrefutable origins in our minds. In a sound work the
various iterations of Hallelujah are cast adrift of their defining
properties.
While we sample other fields of knowledge, do we take care to
understand the research that the knowledge is constructed from?
Tessa Giblin
BLACKBOXING afterparty at SOUTHWILLIAM
Please join us for gourmet pies - ?9, with bar or table service and a
lounge downstairs for dancing. All are welcome.
SOUTHWILLIAM | 52, South William Street (near the Powerscourt Centre)
FRIDAY, 16 NOV
Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas present an extended screening of What
Everybody Knows, and will be joined by Mariana Castillo Deball, Mick
Wilson, Bea McMahon, Garrett Phelan and Tessa Giblin to publicly
discuss the ideas and artworks within Blackboxing.
Please contact Publicist, Aisling McGrane for further information and
images: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or Curator, Tessa Giblin by contacting the
gallery.
Forthcoming exhibitions at Project Arts Centre:
Aurélien Froment, Calling the Elephant 14 DEC - 26 JAN 2008
Rosa Barba & David Malkjovic, 7 FEB - 15 MARCH 2008
Project Arts Centre is funded by the Arts Council - An Chomhairle
Ealaíon and Dublin City Council.

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