Asymmetrical Response

Description:

Asymmetrical Response was an exhibition of work by internet artist Olia Lialina and conceptual artist Cory Arcangel. Since their first meeting on the eve of the year 2000, the artists have been influencing and responding to each other’s work, united by a preoccupation with the power dynamic between people and their computers. Lialina and Arcangel’s awareness of the cultural implications of the Internet’s technical context—as it has shifted from a tool for military communications, to the “information superhighway” that promised open and equal exchange, to the increasingly asymmetric “content delivery system” it has become—resulted in two bodies of work spanning installation, video, prints, sculptures, GIFs, sound, vinyl records, readymades, and wearables.

The exhibition transformed the gallery space through custom wallpaper by Lialina and a readymade carpet that referenced diamond plate steel and early Internet textures. On a long wood table at the centre of the space sat two Android phones that supported a work by Arcangel, Soviet hand-held game consoles, and a Nintendo Game & Watch device. Fabricated by Joji Fukushima, the table was designed to reference the trademarked Apple store display tables.

The exhibition’s titular work was an animated desktop background displayed on a monitor adjacent to AUDMCRS of Recorded Sound (2011)—Arcangel’s catalogued collection of 839 trance LPs purchased from retired underground dance music DJ, Joshua Ryan. Presented as both sculpture and interactive listening station, the records were activated and recontextualized during a concert in the Grand Luxe Hall by Vancouver-based DJ Regularfantasy.

The exhibition also culminated in a publication and CD with contributions by Arcangel and Lialina alongside texts by Tim Griffin and Lumi Tan. 

In January 2017, Asymmetrical Response toured to The Kitchen, New York. 

Curated by Caitlin Jones.