Jillian Mayer / Project Room: Tracey Goodman & Valerie Snobeck Opening
Saturday, May 11, 2013 7-10pm
Locust Projects
3852 North Miami Ave
Miami Fl 33127
Conversation with Tracey Goodman and exhibition curator Joanna Kleinberg Romanow: 6:30pm
Jillian Mayer: Precipice/PostModem
Project Room: Tracey Goodman & Valerie Snobeck: Out of Place
Curated by Joanna Kleinberg Romanow, Assistant Curator, Drawing Center, NY
Now celebrating its 15th year of exhibiting experimental contemporary art, Locust Projects is pleased to present Precipice/PostModem by Miami-based artist Jillian Mayer. Mayer is known for eclectic video installations that compress virtual, cinematic, and physical space. This will be Mayer’s largest exhibition to date, passing fluidly from cinema to installation in both the physical and digital realm while incorporating interactive and technological elements to create a nonlinear meta-narrative.
The exhibition will feature sculptural and installation work satirically exploring the concept of a technological singularity, the theoretical moment in time when the boundary between human and machine no longer exists. Mayer uses comedy as a means to inspire introspection about technology’s place as a surrogate for spirituality in our lives, and implies that it is quickly becoming much more, regardless of whether or not the predictions of futurists like Ray Kurzweil come to fruition. The various pieces of her show explore the ramifications of this impending change, from angles that range from sociological to parodic to sublime.
Works include A Place for Online Dreaming, an installation with performance, linked to an interactive website at Aplaceforonlinedreaming.com as well as Swing Space, another video installation featuring several performers on swings above the gallery floor, transfixed by a projected digital reality; and For U, a sculpture that exists in augmented reality and can only be fully seen through a custom smartphone app. Other works will include self-aware paintings, faux infomercials, and poorly articulated androids constructed of digital tablets and Roomba vacuum cleaners.
Precipice/PostModem builds on a body of work that began with the experimental short film #PostModem which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013 and was later featured in an independent film retrospective at MoMA in New York as part of the Carte Blanche series.