View Recent Changes
Introduction
view recent changes is a collaborative project featuring works by artists Oscar Alfonso, Simon Fuh, Matt Nish-Lapidus, and Sophia Oppel, in collaboration with Hearth - a Toronto artist-run space co-directed by Benjamin de Boer, Rowan Lynch, Sameen Mahboubi and Philip Leonard Ocampo. view recent changes presents an assemblage that considers the ways in which the human, digital, linguistic, machinic, vegetal and animal correlate. Hosted as a wiki, a platform that allows for communal contribution, the project foregrounds lateral hyperlinking and reflects on the possibility of a digital commons. This project considers how to circumvent the individualizing, commodifying qualities of online spaces to explore positive forms of relationality and intimacy.
This exhibition is presented as part of Vector Festival 2020 and has been graciously supported by Joe Lobko and Karen Powers via the Benjamin Hart Lobko Memorial Travel Award.
Goose Cakes
by Rowan Lynch & Simon Fuh
Goose Cakes deploys the digital as a site to consider our relationships with the non-human. The project is based on a series of field notes and writing compiled collaboratively throughout the months of quarantine as we attempted to learn more about geese in order to gift them a cupcake specific to their dietary needs and wants. This work will conclude with a live-streamed artist talk and goose feeding on July 20th, 2020.
Beginning with observation of geese near Wascana Lake in Regina, a man-made lake hosting a migratory bird sanctuary, the project followed Simon’s own COVID influenced migration to Toronto. The second half of this project was then marked by an active search for the geese in this second city, and an interest in the implications of the new patterns of movement COVID has introduced to our lives.
A Hostility Index
by Benjamin de Boer & Sophia Oppel
Sophia Oppel and Benjamin de Boer's navigable webspace examines online environments as sites of hostile architecture, manufacturing desire in the hyper-capitalization of online interfaces. A Hostility Index seeks to create the equivalent of a digital public space in which to loiter and consider the politics of the background, and the supposedly transparent or invisible.
I’m not sure I remember all of our names / No estoy seguro en nuestros nombres
by Sameen Mahboubi, Oscar Alfonso & Relations
We would like to inform that the video-recording of these stories is temporarily suspended and will be carried out over the course of the exhibition, due to the lamentable accident caused by Avena (Oatmeal), my grandmother's cat, who trimmed the trees on their daily outing to the patio.
This project is a reflection on expectations and relationships: about the family members Oscar missed out on as a kid in Vancouver, of the friends he left to move to Toronto, and of all of the other folks who have entered, left, remained, or moved on, into so many other directions. Honestly, I’m not sure I remember all of our names. Living through a pandemic no one wants, he currently rents and owns nothing that can be called home, is still in school, and has no child. In Mexico City, he at least has his avocado trees. Relations were invited to provide stories for these trees by responding with narratives that connected with ideas of travel, diaspora, expectations, obsolescence, or stationariness. As with all diasporic storytelling, responses came from various unexpected sources: close friends, mentors, adoptive aunts, and the occasional hook-up. For now, and forever, our children they will be.
Written stories will be added throughout the exhibition run.
Queremos informar que la grabación en video de la lecturas de estos cuentos se encuentra suspendido temporalmente y se hará sobre el transcurso de la exhibición, ya que tras un accidente lamentable los arboles fueron podados mientras salieron al patio para tomar su baño de sol, por Avena, la gata de mi abuela.
Este proyecto es una reflexión sobre las expectativas y las relaciones, sobre los familiares que Oscar extrañó cuando era niño en Vancouver, de las amistades que dejó para irse a Toronto, y de todas las otras personas que han entrado, salido, se han quedado, o avanzado en tantas y otras direcciones. Honestamente, no estoy seguro en nuestros nombres. Viviendo en una pandemia la cual nadie quiere, él no alquila ni es propietario de nada que se podría llamar un patrimonio, todavía esta en la escuela, y sigue sin descendencia, en la Ciudad de México él a lo menos tiene sus arbolitos de aguacate. Se invitó a diferentes relaciones a compartir pensamientos para estos arboles, respondiendo con cuentos que sean relacionados con ideas del viaje, diáspora, expectativas, obsolescencia, o “stationariness” - el estar pausado, fijo, o estancado. Como suele ser con los cuentos diaspóricos, las respuestas provinieron de varios lugares inesperados: amistades cercanas, tias adoptadas, y la aventura occasional. por ahora y para siempre, nuestros niños serán
Cuentos escritos serán agregados sobre el transcurso de la exhibición.
I'm Feeling Lucky
by Philip Leonard Ocampo & Matt Nish-Lapidus
What was gathered from the meadow? by Philip Leonard Ocampo
Using an image recognition relations dataset as the basis for automated found image assemblage, I'm Feeling Lucky creates unique real-time image sets for each of the 15000+ in the dataset. The set of terms is laid out on a single page as links, flowing to fill the screen. Each link leads to a collage/assemblage of images found through using the phrase as an image search, and arranging the results. Matt Nish-Lapidus, in collaboration with Philip Leonard Ocampo, addresses the human labour behind machine learning, specifically aggregated data-sets that quantify and itemize the different types of relationships between objects/subjects in images online. I'm Feeling Lucky considers (and unravels) the linguistic poetics of code, and address the implications of addressing the human on an in-human scale.