The Esther Klein Gallery at Breadboard is pleased to announce its newest exhibit Data Sweep: David Bowen. An Art in America review described Bowen as taking an “absurdist approach to the translation of scientific technology into art.” Bowen’s work creates a strange symbiosis between technology and the natural world. Mircocontrollers translate the activity of natural agents, like a swarm of flies or live data from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy stations around the globe, into mechanical motion that animates his art.

Data Sweep will be on view at the Esther Klein Gallery (EKG) from January 14th through March 20th, 2011 in Esther Klein Gallery at 3600 Market Street.

Growth Rendering Device, David Bowen

About the Exhibition:

Data Sweep features works by artist David Bowen. Bowen’s work focuses on outcomes that occur when machines interact with the natural world. He produces complex devices and situations that are set in motion to create drawings, movements, compositions, sounds and objects based on their interaction with the space and time they occupy. The devices he constructs often play both the roles of observer and creator, providing limited and mechanical perspectives of dynamic situations and living objects.

Included in the exhibition will be Growth Rendering Device (see image), a system that provides light and food in the form of hydroponic solution for the plant. The plant reacts to the device by growing. The device in-turn reacts to the plant by producing a rasterized inkjet drawing of the plant every twenty-four hours. This system is allowed to run indefinitely and the final outcome is not predetermined.

Data Sweep – List of Works

About the Artist:

David Bowen is an artist and educator. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions including: Brainwave at Exit Art, New York; The Japan Media Arts Festival at The National Art Center, Tokyo; Artbots at Eyebeam, New York and Data + Art at The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. His work has been featured in publications such as: Art in America, Leonardo and Sculpture Magazine. He was recently awarded Grand Prize in the Art Division in The Japan Media Art Festival and Third Prize in the Vida 12.0 Art and Artificial Life International Awards. He received his BFA from Herron School of Art in 1999 and his MFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 2004. He is currently an Associate Professor of Sculpture and Physical Computing at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

For more information, please visit dwbowen.com

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