Paddle8’s “Born Digital” benefit auction for the Italian Link Art Center is up now through April 30th, with 50 works donated by 33 artists. We’ve previously covered Paddle8’s first digital art auction at Phillips Paddles On! and their Fabergé Big Egg Hunt.
The current auction focuses on European artists working radically and traditionally “with the digital medium and within digital environments,” spanning from “early pioneers” to “young artists in their twenties.” The online auction feels well-curated, offers a great cross-section of digital-born works and it features some of ANIMAL’s favorite trouble-makers. Here are our highlights — IOCOSE’s IKEA guillotine (a more affordable, DIY Tom Sachs), JODI, Antonellis and more:
IOCOSE, Sokkomb (2009) Wooden guillotine, blade, rope; 82.68 x 59.06 x 23.62 in
Starting Bid Approx. $9,685
Sokkomb is an IKEA-style guillotine that ironically realizes the dream of a do-it-yourself justice, mixing together personal freedom debates, punishment with no jury trial and industrial design. The group built and designed the guillotine and put it in several IKEA store in Europe.
ARAM BARTHOLL, Are you human? (2012) Aluminium; 12.99 x 29.53 in
Starting Bid Approx. $3,459
Are You Human? (2012) is part of a series started in 2009 as an urban intervention, based on CAPTCHA codes. CAPTCHA codes are small images we encounter on the internet almost every day. To prove to the server that we are human we have to decode the distorted random letter-number word. CAPTCHA codes are generated by a script in the very moment a website is requested. In fact each code is unique but forgotten in digital nirvana very quickly. Once used (or failed) it will never appear as alike again. While many other files on the Internet are being copied and multiplied CAPTCHA codes stay in an ephemeral blind spot. They seem light, sometimes like a micro poem but they ask us the very existential question in an era of digital life.
JODI, %20NetWorked (2013) HTML on customised USB-stick Starting Bid Approx. $401div.[property] and %20NetWorked belong to a recent series of html sketches in which specific effects, mistakes and designs used and abused to comment on specific aspects of the relationship between man and technology. While : div.[property] (http://x20xx.com/11.html) visually presents the staged conflict between the two most used operative systems (Windows and Mac OS), %20NetWorked (http://x20xx.com/20.html) is a lively collage of icons and animated gifs of computers at work.
MATTEO GIORDANO, 8GB – 3 Modular Tactical Vest (MTV) (2011) Materials: 3 black tactical s.w.a.t. vest, silkscreen, ballistic cordura, nylon, dupont; Dimensions Variable. Starting Bid Approx. $6,918Matteo Giordano’s interest in branding, commercial aesthetics and consumerist culture is at the core of 8GB – Advanced Combat Helmet and 8GB – 3 Modular Tactical Vest, both covered with logos, symbols and other visual elements removed from technology products. The works were produced for the show “make.believe”, an analysis of how technology corporations are conditioning and colonizing our visual landscape, as well as appropriating and patenting our language.
ANTHONY ANTONELLIS, CMYRGB (2012) Lenticular prints in Lucite enclosures (series of 24), 19.84 x 36 x 0.75 in; Starting Bid Approx. $4,148 CMYRGB is a series of 24 gradient color combinations which exist simultaneously as digital files and physical objects. The digital versions are looping 3 second GIF animations, while these physical counterparts are lenticular prints suspended in Lucite enclosures. The gradient palette is based on the subtractive and additive color systems cyan-magenta-yellow and red-green-blue.
ELECTROBOUTIQUE, Out of Сontrol (2008) Video installation, damaged 32” screen; Dimensions Variable – Dimensions Variable. Starting Bid Approx. $11,069
The work explores the aesthetics of signal error, techno-ludditism, and glitch. A half-destroyed TV constantly produces visual and audio glitches and shows a viewer’s image processed through them. The screen scrolls, gets distorted and filled with colorful artifacts produced by damaged electronics. The shock of seeing a new expensive commodity destroyed reinforces already deep impression coming from immersing inside the malfunctioning system.
ALEXEI SHULGIN, 386dx – II (1998-2013) Computer multimedia installation, Dimensions Variable; Starting Bid Approx. $11,069
A replica of the legendary “386 DX” – a cyberpunk rock computer-performer. This computer is operated by Windows 3.1 and sings a-la HAL from Space Odyssey 2001. It is accompanied by ancient sound card which generates MIDI sounds of guitars, drums, etc. 386 DX’s repertoire includes, among others, songs by Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley and Jim Morrison. (read more)
EMILIO GOMARIZ, FLUIDS (2013) Video loop. Starting Bid Approx. $4,289Created in January 2013, FLUIDS is a colorful and glossy liquid based loop animation where organic and viscous textures flow randomly creating an arrhythmic fluid state of metallic colors. This piece was first time exhibited at Idlescreens.com for a two weeks solo show in February 2013.
“Born Digital,” Paddle8 online auction, Apr 15 – Apr 30. Register and bid at Paddle8.com.
