ZEITGEIST III - DC Arts Center

1 District of Columbia Arts CenterMAy 4 June 10, 2012 2012. All rights reserved. Image copyrights retained by the IIITOO MUCHINFORMATION?Curated by Ellyn R. Weiss and Sondra N. ArkinCuratorial Assistance by Amanda Jiron-MurphyDistrict of Columbia Arts Center May 4 June 10, 2012 This is the third in an episodic series of exhibitions beginning in 2008. The literal meaning of ZEITGEIST , in German, is spirit of the times. It is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, or political climate within a nation or a group, the ambiance and mood associated with a point in time. For each ZEITGEIST show, we have invited a group of artists to create work expressing their personal responses to an idea or theme that seemed to us to be palpably present in the world around us. Their idiosyncratic perspectives on the theme have surprised and engaged time, the theme is Too Much Information?

2 The question mark suggests our ambivalence and our separate viewpoints about this subject; we are alternately fascinated, troubled, overwhelmed and exhilarated by the increasing streams of information coming to us non-stop, from an ever-growing array of devices and directions. Mostly we feel the effects in our bones, and now evidence is being developed to show that our brains and behaviors are being altered by the information surge and the means by which it is have also discovered that the two of us feel quite differently about this phenomenon:Ellyn I feel physically assaulted by the streams of data that are directed at me without stop and utterly inadequate to meet the demands they make: open my email, check my notifications, update my status, make my timeline, post my photographs, respond to my messages, follow my friends, watch those TeD am overwhelmed by guilt JS ADAMS (BLK W/B EAR)ToM BLoCKSCoTT G.

3 BRooKSRIC hARD DANAANNA U. DAvIS ThoMAS DRyMoNADAM DWIGhTCLAUDIA AZIZA GIBSoN-hUNTERPAT GoSLEE MIChELLE LISA hERMANRyA N h oovERMIC hAEL J A N T Z E N ELIZABETh MoRISETTEMIC hAEL PLATT & CARoL BEANERUTh T REvARRoWand feelings of incompetence and, above all, of fear that my life is now completely out of my control, that I am constantly disappointing my friends by my lack of attention to their needs and feelings. (If no-one likes your posts, have you disappeared?)SnA While I don t suffer with the same feelings of assault as ellyn, I think that I am dog-paddling in a sea of Too Much Connectedness. Most of my adulthood, I curtailed consumption of newspapers and magazines and TV specifically to limit the demands on my time, and because I believed that there was a limit to how much I could know. now I consume 100x more than ever but do I know more? I have terrible retention, but now since everything can be retrieved by The Google at any time, I feel smarter and more connected in an ephemeral way.

4 Ellyn I wish I felt smarter; instead I feel like the amount of information that I don t know (and the part of my world that I don t really understand) has increased exponentially while the amount that I know and understand is shrinking. And, perhaps worse, the amount of time that I have to reflect on what I observe in the world has shrunken to almost nothing. I will admit, though, that I am in awe of google and use it to great effect and with great pleasure all the time. But since I initiate the encounter with google myself, it doesn t feel the same. Although now that google is coming at me with dancing and singing ads all the time, the pleasure is Statement ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? 32 curators stateMentSnA y ou started off smarter than me! What fascinates me is that I went from being in a minority of power-technology-users to a world where everyone is an expert: photographer, journalist, videographer, direct marketer, publisher, designer, writer, artist but, really, can the interweb make you all that?

5 (They have an app for that!) It is up to the individual to manage the information stream that floods us everyday: the siren call of the virtual playland, the allure of devices that whisper connection, and the promise of infinite answers. For me, Z3:TMI? is about distractibility, data streams, and excess. For me, the ZEITGEIST is about throwing all the shit at the wall and seeing what sticks (but that is just too messy for me).How do we extract what is important, what enhances our lives? How do we shift from the reactive mode of early adopters to proactively selecting just the tools that actually enhance our lives? Do we chase after every ball that comes in leaving a trail of unfinished projects behind us? Tom B lock | Illustrations of an Unpublished Novel V mixed media on paper | 10" x 8"Do we prove our capability by being accessible whenever someone beckons us proving our worth?

6 Do we jump, compose, and deliver as quickly as possible showing we are more creative, and smarter, than someone else?How do we choose what minutia is share-worthy and what is private?How much is Too Much, and how will we know?How much has this web of connectivity commanded us?How much does the information super-highway drive us?Ellyn y ou have said it all and awfully poetically, n. Arkin | ellyn Weiss Curators, Z3:TMI?, May, 20124 ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? 5 Pat Goslee | Upon Learning that Multitasking is Not Neurologically Possible acrylic and latex on canvas | 18" x 18"Michael B. Platt/Poem: Carol A. Beane | Just Outside My Window | pigment print on canvas | 68" x 32"Adam Dwight | Ellie Smurfnick (dark hearts by her feat) gouache and ink on board 18" x 24"6 ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation?

7 7 Scott G. Brooks | 2 | mixed media on paper | 12" x 14"Anna U. Davis | The Modern Plague | acrylic, paper and ink on canvas | 30" x 26"8 ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? 9 TOP: Jantzen | CaBi Animation | video 00:90 BOTTOM: Ryan Hoover | Base | acrylic paint on etched acrylic | 17" x 22"Richard Dana | Plugged In | archival pigment print | 36" x 26"10 ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? 11 Michelle Lisa Herman | Love Letters (Language is a Virus) multimedia installation | dimensions variableClaudia Aziza Gibson-Hunter | Too Much Information? Call 1 (503) 822-6824? multimedia installation | approximately 60" x 44 x 36"12 ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? 13 Elizabeth Morisette | Consume | Mixed media | 26" x 18" x 8"Ruth Trevarrow | Tipping Point | 6" x 6"top left: QR 2 | wax, ink, pencil on paneltop right: QR 4 | ink on cork panelBottom left: QR 8 | wax, ink, charcoal, pencil, colored pencil on panelBottom right: QR-11 | foam on panel14 ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation?

8 Thomas Drymon | archival pigment print | 18 x 12 top: Caucasian male, 35-54 years of age, HHI >$50 KBottom: Caucasian male 2, 38-62 years of age, HHI>$75 KArtists StatementsBlK w/BEAR - JS Adams, Doug Poplin, and PD Sexton A self-(mis)guided audio-tour component to the exhibit. Working with text-to-sound files created from copy provided by the curators and exhibiting artists, along with other input, the sound-art composition E:MIT seeks to convey an audiographic meltdown due to our on-going over-saturation and subse-quent digital breakdown of too much (electronic) information. Gallery goers will interact with the sound files via their own smartphones by reading QR codes positioned around BlockThese works take their inspiration from Tom s novel, The Fool Returns, which follows Bill from life as a waiter in new york through a series of increasingly bizarre encounters in small towns in western Spain and finally, to Lisbon, Portugal, where the climax of the tale unfolds in a block-long whorehouse.

9 JS Adams (BLK w/BEAR) E:MIT The pictures are a view of what happens on his long road as well as what s going on inside the searcher s mind and soul, a young man who discovers a familial past that involves him with the political present, as well as the spiritual meaning of humankind. They reflect the seeth-ing mass of information that Bill must synthesize on his spiritual and physical travels a voyage that mimics our own, as we try to pick our way through an increasingly frenetic world toward some kind of fundamental understanding of the world and our place within G. BrooksWe are all faced with too much informa-tion, be that on a global scale or between two people. Intimacy is a juggling act of information. Some prefer as much information as possible, so they can deal with anything unpleasant. Others want little or no information, allowing them to pretend everything is okay. Richard DanaWhat a bright, colorful, wonderful, brave new world we can have now!

10 Never a dull moment. you re always connected. Streams of digital information flow into the multi-tasking and multi-layered fields of your consciousness. Feed your head. Truth? your choice: the facts are out there. Instant information! Instant gratification! your own digitally-mediated society instantly! We are becoming one. We are becoming zero. Get the ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? ZEITGEIST 3: too Much inforMation? 17 Anna U. DavisA room full of strangers A woman s predicament Shared unknowingly But inevitably KnowingThomas DrymonThese images are part of an ongoing project that visualizes the way data (information) is collected, analyzed and aggregated to create group profiles in order to enhance user experiences online and in the real world or to sell people things. In it, images (head shots) are collected through crowd-sourcing and online searches and then layered, sliced and re-composited using a processing program that generates the new image one that sometimes looks human and, at other times, does not.