Unleashed Devices, Watermans Art Centre/TINT

'Unleashed Devices' is the current exhibition (1st September - 22nd October 2010) at the Watermans Art Centre, Brentford, that was co-curated by the new media arts organisation TINT.  The extensive exhibition which spans the upper gallery, stairwells and lower foyer presents over 30 artworks from artists or hackers that explore digital and open source networks within their practice. I was familiar with a handful of the artist's practices before attending; the design group Tinker and the collaborative group Owl Project - mainly through their exposure through the FutureEverything Festival 2010.  A large proportion of artists/hackers that also exhibited were graduates of Goldsmiths College's Department of Computing, which was one of the funding bodies supporting the exhibition.

A collection of the artists/hackers work sought to engage the audiences physical body through tracking devices, such as the Haunted Typewriter by Neil Mendoza and Anthony Goh.  As we moved around the plinth where a 'old fashioned' typewriter sits upon, a tracking device activates the key pads of the typewriter to produce the written word on paper.  This work seemed to approach one of the issues at stake here - are these items just gadgets and experiments, or artworks? Indeed, the crowded exhibition layout  involved the audience to walk to each object to investigate its potential rather than be impacted visually by aesthetics or form.  Despite the clear intention to use the digital as a tool to involve the audience, instead of remaining an onlooker, we become part of the artwork,or act as a catalyst per se.

As an artist that does reference the digital, but particularly the architecture that forms the space in which we occupy, I gained a sense of clarity and focus with regards to my own practice.  My own art practice uses non digital processes to explore the intangible space that we daily occupy.  I have often been given feedback, if you are referencing digital space, should you not be using digital technologies to engage participants in the work? Without being able to pin point exactly, I have a strong sense that my exploration should be through non digital processes and constructed by the handmade.