Drawing with Algorithms: a Participatory Drawing Project
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posted on 2024-08-20, 00:35 authored by Simon GrennanSimon Grennan, Ilona JetmarIlona Jetmar, Katie LeeKatie LeeDrawing with Algorithms: a Participatory Drawing Project
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Public exhibition and residency inside the Federation Estate Gallery.Publication classification
JC2 Curated Exhibition or Event – Exhibition/EventExtent
50 X small drawings (individual artists) 5 X large scale participatory drawings (aprox. 1.5 x 1.0 meters) 1 X large scale participatory drawing ( 1.5 X 3 meters) 1 X 5.5 meter drawing (artists collaborative drawing)Start date
2023-11-15End date
2024-01-31Research statement
Background Algorithms play a largely invisible but pervasive role in shaping contemporary life and hence have also become an important cultural phenomenon requiring deeper interdisciplinary study. While the visual arts have long explored rule-based procedures, most of those explorations have been confined to purely abstract idioms which do not adequately reflect the ways in which algorithms reach beyond the digital and into our everyday lives. This drawing project investigates how algorithmic thinking can mediate our embodied perceptual and representational systems and, concordantly, investigate new ways of engaging with audiences, sites, data, and histories. Contribution While some form of rule-based system is necessary to structure public participation, rule-based public art too often restricts that participation to cognitively simple, often repetitive, undifferentiated or anonymous gestures. In this project, drawing prompts combine perceptual and representational processes with archival photographic material, and data/information gathering in ways that allowed for more sophisticated audience participation. The original artifacts contribute to, as well as document, an understanding of how artists can generate dynamic, differentiated, and unpredictable encounters with local sites, communities, information and histories. Significance The project team developed an ambitious body of original drawings produced before, during, and after the residency-exhibition period (Nov 2023-Jan 2024). This included over 50 small works and 8 large-scale participatory drawings. The project was conducted at Maroondah Council’s premium Federation Estate Gallery via a competitive application process. As well as receiving a Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant, two of the major works were acquired by the Maroondah Art Collection. As Director Andrew Dong stated: “the exhibition was highly engaging, drawing more audience participation than any other exhibition at [the] Gallery since I began my role in 2021” .Recognition, awards & prizes
Recieved Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant. 2 works acquired by the City of Maroondah Art collectionEvent
Drawing with AlgorithmsPublisher
Federation Estate GalleryPlace of publication
Ringwood MelbourneUsage metrics
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