Alt-World: Tactics of Evasion

Opening Reception: March 3

We are continuously presented with utopian visions of the future that technology will bring. Innovations led by industry and capital spurring dreams of metaverse that include augmented realities, artificial intelligences, and crypto currencies. Artists Wang Chen, Lau Wai, and Mathew Gantt create alternative worlds that are performative and resistant to hyper-normalization. Each artist utilizes or reference emerging technologies by subverting their intended use to find new possibilities for living and being in digital worlds.

Image: Into the Woods Wang Chen, 2021

About the Artists

Matthew D. Gantt is an artist, composer, and educator based between NYC and Troy, NY. His practice focuses on sound in virtual spaces, generative systems facilitated by idiosyncratic technology, and digital production presets as sonic readymades. He worked as a studio assistant to electronics pioneer Morton Subotnick from 2016 - 2018, and has been an active participant in the international creative community, presenting or performing at spaces such as Pioneer Works, Issue Project Room, Roulette, Babycastles, SVA Visible Futures Lab, Feral File, IRCAM, Mutek Mexico, ICST Zurich, and countless DIY venues and grassroots organizations. Gantt releases music with Orange Milk and Oxtail Recordings, is a member of New Museum's NEW INC creative incubator, and has taught experimental composition at both institutional and DIY spaces, including NYC non-profit/public media studio Harvestworks, CUNY Brooklyn, Bard College, Sarah Lawrence, and a variety of community workshops aimed at creating equitable access to developing technologies. Gantt’s work has been featured in The Wire magazine, Pop Matters, Exclaim!, Tiny Mix Tapes, Bandcamp New and Notable and similar.

Lau Wai is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist, born and raised in Hong Kong. They utilize photography, moving images, new media, sculptural objects, and installation to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory, and virtuality collide in the process of identity formation. Their research and material sources range from personal and historical archives to cinematic imagery, popular culture, and emerging technologies. Their works are collected by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (United States); Alexander Tutsek – Stiftung Foundation (Germany) and M+ Museum (Hong Kong). They have exhibited in Europe, Asia, and North America, including Brandts Museum of Art and Visual Culture, Denmark (2016); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2015, 2018); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019, 2021); Kuandu Biennale, Taiwan (2018); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan (2015); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States (2019) and Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020). They have participated in various residency programs including the LES Studio Program, a program of Artists Alliance Inc., NARS Foundation, New York, and Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred University, New York, among others.

WANG Chen (b.1991) incorporates drawing, sculpture, costumed performance, fabrication, sound engineering, and 3D game design to create highly saturated fictional immersive fictional dreamscapes within video installation. They received a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University (2014) and an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology (2018). WANG’s fellowships, awards, and residencies include New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellow (Interdisciplinary), Vermont Studio Center, MASS MoCA, NARS Foundation, Roswell Artist in Residency, and MacDowell Fellowship. WANG has been shown in multiple exhibitions nationally and internationally, including in the US, Sweden, Greece, UK, and China.

About the Curator

Eric Souther's creative research draws from a multiplicity of disciplines, including new materialism, anthropology, ritual, deep time, and toolmaking. These areas are read through one another and coalesce in technological assemblages that form emergent systems or software for exploring relations. He works to instrumentalize these systems so that they can become performative ways to navigate unexpected images/meaning making. His work takes many pathways, which include interactive installation, audio-visual performance, single-channel video, and software.

Eric's work has been featured nationally and internationally at venues such as the Museum of Art and Design, NYC, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, and the Museum of Art, Zhangzhou, China. His work has screened in The Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens, Greece, Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, Beyoglu, Instanbul, Cronosfera Festival, Alessandria, Italy, the Galerija 12 New Media Hub, Belgrade, Serbia, the Simultan Festival, Timisoara, Romania, and the Festival ECRÃ of Audiovisual Experimentations, Rio de Janeiro. He is currently an Associate Professor of Video Art in the Division of Expanded Media at NYSCC at Alfred University.

The Institute for Electronic Art

All artists are previous residents of the The Institute for Electronic Arts, a high technology research studio facility within the School of Art and Design, NYSCC, Alfred University, New York. The IEA encourages and supports projects that involve interactive multi-media systems, experimental sonic/video production, digital imaging, and publications. The IEA is committed to developing cultural interactions spurred by technological experimentation and artistic investigations.