experiment02
April – May 2005, Franchise Gallery
Johannesburg, South Africa

From the press release:

“In their second duo show, and third large scale collaboration, marcus neustetter and nathaniel stern use simple technologies to explore different ways of looking. With experiment02, Neustetter continues on his Digital Frottage track, while Stern embarks on what he has been ironically calling Compressionism. Both artists are using various capture and display modes, sending physical objects and bodies, over time, through digital and analogical mediations. The work is intended to ask us all to ‘look again.’…”

” … Compressionism is a digital performance, and an analog archive; it utilizes various ‘perform and capture,’ ‘edit and exhibit’ modes, and the resulting art-objects-as- evidence ask viewers to explore different ways of looking. The first Compressionist studies use the reflective beam of a moving digital scanner, over time, to compress large spaces or objects into images the size of a small sheet of paper: in this case, the gallery itself. Once a performance is digitized and compressed, the computer acts as multiple frames for its subject; it’s used to process, clarify, and unpack the study – both literally, and metaphorically. The resulting prints are intended to provoke a complex conversation between artist, performance, mediation tool, art-object(s) and viewer.”

Also see Nicole Ridgway’s glossary (PDF) – a provocative text displayed as part of the exhibition.