We are pleased to announce that for the 3rd year in a row, Niio will be at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), the largest AV and systems integration show in the world.
As part of our commitment to making digital art accessible, Niio is working with display hardware manufacturers as well as a global channel of AV integrators and designers to ensure that commercial and residential locations can easily access and experience high quality digital art on-demand.
At each location, we will be showing a curated selection of digital art, demonstrating the Niio delivery and display platform and explaining how we work with AV integrators, consultants and design partners.
Of course we understand that digital art cannot be limited to any specific format, screen size or resolution and as such, these hardware and installation relationships, ensure that together with Niio, any type of digital art canvas can be perfectly created, installed and set up.
The Lounge is a collaborative initiative between Niio, Genesis Technologies, Philips & Steinway, all businesses that marry technology with design with the sole mission of raising the standard for the homes of today and tomorrow. Learn more.
We are proud to say that the newest Philips 4K Professional Displays (32″ – 98″) are available globally with Niio’s 4K Art Player pre-integrated and ready to use. Please join us at the Philips booth to experience Niio.
THE BARCO RESIDENTIAL BOOTH (E107)
Niio art will be showcased on Barco’s high quality projectors across a triptych of LED tiles. Don’t miss this installation!
THE KRAMER ELECTRONICS LTD BOOTH (1-F20)
Come see how Kramer’s innovative professional AV products for Corporate environments can be used to deliver and display high quality digital art.
Cloud Pond 1, 2015, HD Animation, 3:00; Courtesy of bitforms gallery.
Sara Ludy’s practice spans websites, animation, video, sculpture, and audio-visual performance. Her work investigates the liminal space between virtual and physical, featuring architectures and objects that evoke conceivable earthly scenes, yet feel supernatural due to their digital texture. I spoke with Sara about her archival approach, animation process, and the symbiotic relationship between her lucid dreams and VR practice.
Where did you grow up and where do you live now?
I was born in Orange, CA and raised in Bluemont, VA., a small rural town between Mount Weather and the Appalachian Trail. I currently live in Chicago.
Where did you go to school?
I studied new media, sound, and painting at SAIC.
What does your studio look like?
I converted my dining room into a studio. It’s cozy and full of plants.
When did you start working creatively with technology?
In high school, I made collaged tape recordings and drew alien costumes in MacPaint. I also learned Photoshop.
Your series Clouds pushes the constraints of software defaults to evoke natural phenomenon without the use of outside source material. Can you describe the process of making the animations in this series? Do you work on several simultaneously or one at a time? Are you working with custom or pre-existing software? How is the series evolving?
Clouds are made using fractal and turbulence plugins, which simulate natural phenomena. I use these plugins to generate dozens of images; all with varying patterns, colors, and movement. When the images are layered, a painterly animation takes form. Clouds firstemerged from an interest in wanting to make atmospheric projections that resonate a sense of place through abstraction. Since 2011, the series has expanded to include other forms; water, plants, animals, fabric and glass. I’m currently working on two, and have ten or so unfinished.Pond Wave is the most recent.
Your series Animistics is a collection of sculptural forms inspired by lucid dreams and sacred spaces. They’re legible as believable objects, yet seem completely otherworldly. Did you often dream lucidly before or was it something you learned and practiced for this project? Over time, did the architecture and spaces in your dreams begin reflecting the ones you consciously construct in your work, or have they always influenced each other?
The first lucid dream I remember was in 2002. I woke up in a yellow bedroom with no indication I was dreaming until I looked at myself in the mirror. The second lucid dream I had was in 2007 when my best friend passed away. We embraced in a kitchen. Both of these rooms are in Dream House. Since then, I’ve had many lucid experiences. Flying and shape-shifting mansions are recurring themes.
My dreams and practice cocreate often. Lately, I’ve been having dreams of my VR aviary and have adjusted the environment according to the dream experiences. Since the physical world is peripherally absent in both dreaming and VR, the journey from one to another has the potential to feel seamless, making world building a lot of fun. Dreams and virtual reality are ideal collaborators.
http://low-prim.com/ features curated selections from a living archive of found images contained in a folder on your desktop published on the occasion of your exhibition Subsurface Hell. Have you continued to update the folder since the exhibition opened in 2016? Has the process of arranging and publishing this image diary changed the way you manage your personal archive?
The archive contains a plethora of images I’ve been collecting since 2001. It’s intentionally unorganized, allowing me to seek new relationships between the images when I dive in. I’m still adding to the archive but haven’t made many new posts since the show, maybe three. I’ve been focusing on other bodies of work, generating content rather than amassing it.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m building a VR aviary for Dream House, making glass sculptures, more cloud animations, a birding book, some paintings, among one thousand more ideas I wish to manifest.
In a field where hardware and software can quickly become obsolete, how do you approach documentary and archival processes for your artwork?
I back up work in the cloud/on drives/at my gallery while accepting obsolescence will occur. I don’t have anxiety about this, as digital media is inherently temporary and fleeting. Erosion and data loss are part of its aesthetic.
Who are some contemporary or historical new media artists that you admire? What are some of your favorite works?
Visionaries whom I admire are Georgia O’Keeffe, Alice Coltrane, Jane Goodall, Francine Patterson, Jorge Luis Borges, James Turrell, Gordon Matta-Clark, Trevor Paglen, Alex Da Corte, Kay Sage and Buckminster Fuller; to name a few. My favorite works are columnar basalt and bird songs.
Top image: Cloud Pond 1, 2015, HD Animation, 3:00; Courtesy bitforms gallery. [/vc_column_text]
At Niio, we are passionate about the intersection of Art, Design & Technology. From code-based and algorithmic artworks, to AR & VRinstallations, to blockchain for authentication, crypto art as well as the .ART domain, talk of digital art was everywhere in ’17. Check out some of the great stories that we’re reading now and look out for lots more throughout the year.
ARCHITECTUAL DIGEST // Marilyn Minter’s Largest Public Artwork Is All About Me
“Well, all artists have a narcissism problem,” says Marilyn Minter gleefully as she walks the 280-foot length of her newest work. A collaboration with the Art Production Fund, the project is a video, produced in partnership with Westfield World Trade Center and displayed, unignorably (as any narcissist would appreciate), every eight minutes on the 19 screens of varying sizes that dot the inside of Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus and its surrounding buildings.” Read more.
Photo via Art Production Fund
THE ART NEWSPAPER // The Future May Be Virtual, But Who Is Running the Show?
Virtual reality (VR) art is no longer the preserve of geeky coders. Artists such as Paul McCarthy, Marina Abramovic and Jeff Koons are beginning to create work using the technology, and start-up technology firms are springing up in the race to distribute and sell them. But as collectors begin to circle and prices rise, several legal and ethical questions are being raised, including who owns the art, how do you protect your work, and who has the right to place art in virtual public places? Read more.
Mat Collishaw: Thresholds at Somerset House Photo: Graham Carlow
NEW YORK TIMES // Will Cryptocurrencies Be the Art Market’s Next Big Thing?
“On Dec. 16, the nascent market for what might be called cryptoart appeared to reach a new level when the hitherto-unknown Distributed Gallery announced the auction of “Ready Made Token,” a unique unit of a cryptocurrency that the gallery said was created by Richard Prince using technology from Ethereum, the network responsible for Ether. The online gallery describes itself as the first to specialize in blockchain-based artwork and exhibition.” Read more.
Richard Prince’s “Ripple” paintings share a name with a high-rising cryptocurrency. Credit David Regen/Gladstone Gallery
ARTSY // When Steve Jobs Gave Andy Warhol a Computer Lesson
It was October 9th, 1984, and Steve Jobs was going to a nine-year-old’s birthday party. He’d been invited just a few hours earlier by journalist David Scheff, who was wrapping up a profile of the Apple Computer wunderkind for Playboy. Jobs was far from the highest-profile guest, however. Walter Cronkite, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Louise Nevelson, John Cage, and singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson were also in attendance. And Yoko Ono, of course—it was her son’s birthday, after all. Read more.
A 1984 Macintosh. Photo via Dave Winer on Flickr.
THE GLOBE & MAIL // Is It Big Brother? Is It Art? What If It’s Both?
The watchers watch us, we watch ourselves, and maybe someone is preparing to feed it all back to us as art.
The creator of Colorimeter is Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a Mexican-born artist who lives in Montreal.
ARTNEWS // Rhizome Gets $1M. From Mellon Foundation For Webrecorder, Its Web Preservation Tool
The New York–based digital arts organization Rhizome has been awarded a two-year $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue the development of its web preservation tool Webrecorder. The grant, the largest in the institution’s history, follows a previous two-year grant of $600,000 from the Mellon Foundation that it received in December 2015 to put the tool’s development into full gear. Read more.
At Niio, we are passionate about the intersection of Art, Design & Technology. From code-based and algorithmic artwork, to AR & VR installations, blockchain, and the new .ART domain, digital art was everywhere in ’17. Check out some of the great stories that we’re reading now and look out for lots more in ’18.
ARTNEWS // The Year in Screens, in Museums, Galleries, and So On
“It’s estimated that the average American spends about ten hours looking at screens—on phones, laptops, desktops, tablets, televisions, and so on—every day. Screens are more than a little ubiquitous at this point, and I realized, perhaps not so surprisingly, that many of my favorite exhibitions from this year involved the use of screens.” Read more.
Installation view of “Haroon Mirza: ‘ããã – Fear of the Unknown remix,” 2017, at Lisson Gallery, New York. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LISSON GALLERY
THE VERGE // Miami Art Basel: Where Art Reckons With Technology
“In the mass of confusion that is Miami Art Basel, there’s more discussion about the issues of our time, and much of that is framed around technology and the way it is making us think, react, and exist. In the midst of traditional paintings and sculpture on view, Miami Art Basel is demonstrative of how the art world is catching up to internet culture.” Read more.
“Members Only” by Brian Bress, a high-definition single-channel video (color), high-definition monitor and player, wall mount, framed. Courtesy of the artist and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles
BOSTON GLOBE //
Boston Arts Groups Team up for Sprawling Look at Art, Technology
“This February, 12 Boston-area arts organizations will band together to present a sprawling series of exhibitions exploring the symbiotic relationship between art and technology — a rare cross-institutional collaboration that includes painting, film, and Web-based art, among others.” Read more.
Jon Rafman’s “View of Harbor, 2017” will be part of “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today” at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
OCEAN DRIVE //
Julia Stoscheck Talks Her Inspiring Collection of Time-Based Media Art
“Art that exists only when installed? Whose every iteration can be considered a different representation of the work? Employing essential equipment and technology that can fail or become obsolete? None of it fazes Julia Stoschek, a leading collector of time-based media art, who gives these pieces the space they need to unfold their magic.” Read more.
Imi Knoebel, Projektion X, 1972, and Klaus vom Bruch, Das Alliiertenband (Allies Tape), 1982, from the exhibition “Generation Loss” at the Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf.
The 25 People Who Defined Visual Culture This Year
“What, exactly, is visual culture? In a world where we communicate increasingly with images, it’s an ever-expanding field, comprising not just art, photography, and design, but also memes, advertising, histories of representation, and the very technologies through which all this flows.” Read more.
Magic Leap One, Lightwear. Courtesy of Magic Leap.
THE ART NEWSPAPER // UK’s First Permanent Virtual Reality Space in an Arts Institution to Open in London
“This year saw Virtual Reality (VR) reach new heights and capabilities in the art world and now London is getting its first free and permanent public VR space.” Read more.
Rachel Rossin’s I Came and Went as a Ghost Hand (Cycle 2, 2015) Courtesy the artist, Zabludowicz Collection and ZieherSmith, New York
VENTURE BEAT //
AR and VR Could be Educational — and Profitable — Tools For Museums
“When introduced to new technology, many people react with a mixture of fear and confusion, rather than excitement for the possibilities that the future may hold. Museums are in an even more difficult position: balancing the archiving and preservation of our history and remaining relevant to our society in the present and future, while being cognizant of major financial considerations.” Read more.
The Kerry James Marshall exhibit at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
UPROXX REPORTS // This Artist Explores the Intersection of Art and Tech by Using Bitcoin
“I make art that that tries to sort of shine a spotlight on the connection between humans and technology,” Bauch says. Read more.
Uproxx
THE ART NEWSPAPER //
High-tech Art in Houston: Data-driven Installations Look at Issues Like Hurricane Harvey and Mass Incarceration:
“While musical acts like Nine Inch Nails, Solange and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke might have taken most of the spotlight at this year’s Day for Night, a music and art festival in Houston, Texas, the visual art on offer was just as attention-grabbing.” Read more.
The Mill, Uproar (2017) at Day for Night Victoria Stapley-Brown
HYPER ALLERGIC //
Women Artists Working with Technology
“This rigorous exhibition uses art to critique the stereotype that men and technology go hand in hand.” Read more.
Installation view of “Making/Breaking the Binary” (2017), Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia
THE VERGE //
Artist Daniel Canogar Visualizes Real-time Environmental Shifts With LED Sculptures
It sometimes seems like technology is at odds with the art world — a tension between brain and heart. But plenty of artists, from Da Vinci to Cory Arcangel, have proved that’s not true, and continue to prove it as technology evolves. In Technographica, we explore how contemporary artists are using technology in unusual and unexpected ways. Read more.
Basin by Daniel Canogar; Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales for the Verge. Daniel is represented by bitforms.
RHIZOME // What is the Future of Digital Art?
“A new video from the Thoma Art Foundation brings together answers from ten experts.” View video.
Together with our partner Genesis Technologies, one of Europe’s premiere technology integrators for luxury homes and yachts, we participated in their VIP Lounge on the Cote d’Azur and again in Marbella, Spain.
In France, participants included art collectors and prestige design professionals (architects + interior designers) while in Spain we spent an afternoon with hardware partners and technology integrators.
We are on a mission to expose people to original, high-quality, immersive digital art experiences. With a collection of thousands of works from top artists and galleries, state-of-the-art technology, a global hardware infrastructure and white glove installation and support, Niio makes it easy to incorporate captivating digital art into any environment.
Interested in premium digital art for your home or next project? Please contact us.
Several members of Niio including co-founder, Oren Moshe, had the opportunity to spend time in Frankfurt, Germany at the B3 Biennale of the Moving Image.
Since 2013, B3 has shaped the interdisciplinary and transnational debate on trends and developments relating to the moving image in the fields of art, cinema, TV, games, design, communication and immersion. The aim of the Biennial is to create a broad interdisciplinary alliance for the moving image, and offer the international culture and creative industry a platform for innovation and exchange.
Oren Moshe participated in several official events and discussions including a panel entitled: “Accessibility and monetization of moving image art now and in the future. New platforms and new solutions.” Moderated by Julia Sökeland, co-founder blinkvideo, Oren was also joined by Clare Langan, a film and video artist from Ireland, contemporary visual artist, Erika Harrsch, collector Tony Podesta and collector Baron Futa.
Check out some of the photos from our time in Germany at B3.
Niio Co-Founder, Oren Moshe @B3 discussing a work by Quayola. #digitalartPanel @B3: “Accessibility and monetization of moving image art now and in the future. New platforms and new solutions.”A large audience for Oren’s panel @ B3. #digitalartNiio’s Xuf Mills experiencing ‘Levitation’ by David Guez and Bastien Didier.
