Title : Alternative Cloud Research
Artist: Vadim Gershman
Opening : Saturday, March 31st / @7.00pm -- Closing : May 5th
Location: XYandZGallery / 3258 Minnehaha Ave. S Minneapolis / Minnesota
Alternative Cloud Research is a response to the experience of virtual tourism and an exploration of spiritual potential of digital media. This project consists of an automated web archive, which continuously searches, processes, displays and archives images of clouds from Google Earth. Another component of the exhibit is a series of printed works on canvas, which confront the spiritual/transcendent dimension of Google.
Gershman's concept for Alternative Cloud Research came spontaneously during a Google Earth excursion to Sao Paolo in the Summer of 2011. In an attempt to navigate out of a tunnel, Gershman accidentally found himself facing the clouds, arrested by an unexpected richness of color and light. He was inexplicably struck by this experience and consequently began to travel inside Google Street View with a specific purpose of seeking out and capturing compelling skyscapes. During busy workdays the process of virtual travel would often become a much needed meditative reprieve and the purpose of these excursions, a valuable destination. To behold a vivid, vast yet entirely lifeless sky is at once exciting and slightly unsettling. In a world where more and more experiences are re-directed to and mediated by digital media, a place where virtual reality persistently seeps into the physical world and vice versa, how clear is the line between the real and the virtual?
The automated aspect of this project was created with support from Jayesh Iyer.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Vadim Gershman is an artist/designer. He works collaboratively, across disciplines, creating projects that range from formal to conceptual, working in 2d, video, installation, web and performance. Despite a certain resistance to definition, Vadim approaches his practice as a form of critical address as well as a catalyst for exchange. Currently his work explores portable communities, simulation and the nature of a lived experience at the intersection of the real and the virtual.
Vadim was born and raised in Ukraine. He received a BFA in Communication Design from University of Connecticut and studied book design at the London College of Communication. He currently finds himself in the final stretch of his MFA in Design at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, March 31st / 7-10pm / Free
The exhibit runs through May 5th
XYandZ Gallery / 3258 Minnehaha Ave S / Minneapolis, MN 55406
thexyandz.com