‘STAR and monkeys from Paignton Zoo, Notes toward the Complete works of Shakespeare’. [enlarge]

‘STAR and monkeys from Paignton Zoo, Notes toward the Complete works of Shakespeare’.

Yoko Ono, ‘Yoko Ono performing Mend peace for the world’. [enlarge]

Yoko Ono, ‘Yoko Ono performing Mend peace for the world’.

REVIEW

Generator

Firstsite, Colchester
8 February – 29 March

Reviewed by: Wil Bolton

'Generator' brings together a number of works exploring ideas of generation. Some use mechanics, some text, some sound, some digital media. What they all have in common however is a certain element of self-generation. Whether organically or systematically, in some way all the works change or grow over time, and concern themselves with issues of authorship, processes of creation and destruction and structures of form and meaning in nature, culture and technology.

Mark Bowden and Limbomedia present the work Polymorph, a machine that generates light and sound. Unlike a computer that can only ever provide mathematical approximations of natural processes and phenomena, this is an electromechanical object that is able to produce sonic and visual patterns, waves and pulses that are both chaotic and systemic, unnerving and mesmerising.

Limbomedia have also teamed up with STAR and Paignton Zoo for the project Vivaria, which documents via text and webcam a performance involving monkeys typing the complete works of Shakespeare. The idea is that if an infinite number of monkeys are given an infinite amount of time, they will eventually be able to reproduce Shakespeare's entire oeuvre. Here the zoo is presented as a microcosm or metaphor for wider issues concerning creativity, authorship and the relationships between humans, animals and machines.

Stuart Brisley and Ade Ward's piece ordure::real-time is an installation consisting of a vast digital projection that is in a constant process of chaotic degradation and renewal. This work has been programmed to react to its audience; the actual act of viewing it is itself the trigger for its destruction. When not subjected to the spectator's gaze, the image begins to rebuild itself.

Other interesting works in this exhibition include three instruction and participation pieces from Yoko Ono, Ward's interactive generative computer programme Auto-Illustrator that mimics commercial vector graphics applications, and Sol LeWitt's serial variation using found postcards of Chicago.

Writer detail:
WIL BOLTON
is a writer

wil_bolton@yahoo.co.uk |

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