MICHAEL TAKEO MAGRUBER, USA/UK
Michael Takeo Magruder is an artist and researcher in the Visualisation Lab, King's College London. His work uses emerging technologies; including high-performance computing, mobile devices and virtual environments, within contemporary creative and academic practice. His artworks have been showcased in over 200 exhibitions and 30 countries, including venues such as the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, EAST International 2005, Georges Pompidou Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau. His works are regular inclusions in international New Media festivals, such as Cybersonica, CYNETart, FILE, Filmwinter, Rencontres Internationales, SeNef, Siggraph, Split, VAD and WRO. His artistic practice has been funded directly by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Arts Council England, The National Endowment for the Arts, USA and numerous public galleries both within the UK and abroad. He is also recognised for his online arts practice and has been commissioned by leading portals for Internet Art such as Turbulence.org and Soundtoys.net. His work blends Information Age technologies with modernist-like aesthetics to explore the formal structures and conceptual paradigms of the networked, digital world.
http://www.takeo.org
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Reflection (hope and reconciliation), web art, 2008
Pervasive mass-media in the information age offers us a continuous stream of mediated realities. Countless events of varying and often questionable significance emerge as scrolling columns of headline news and then quickly fade into the soon-forgotten annals of our time.
Within this saturated datascape of history, there are singular defining moments that rise above the ubiquitous monotony of the everyday. These events shape the consciousness of individuals and nations alike by transcending their epoch, and are indelibly situated within greater historical overviews that inform the perceptions of both present and future generations.
In an era of unjust wars and monumental acts of terror, some of these events have eroded our most precious institutions and sustained fear within all strata of society, while others have instilled within us hope and offered us a means to reconcile our past transgressions.
Reflection (hope and reconciliation) re-mediates one such moment. Through the distillation of its aesthetic elements – images, words, voice, music – we experience the event with changed, but undiminished intensity. |
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