2023: res nodus
In conversation with Georgia Perkins 15 April, 6-8pm
The immersive installation, Res Nodus, invites the public to explore the grid as an apparatus from which we measure and align, micro and macro, and virtual and material worlds. The work comments on how the grid has evolved from a scientific apparatus, utilized in microbiology and cosmology to a common tool that extends into virtual world-making. With the incorporation of body-data, via electrophysiological interfacing (EEG sensors), which measure brainwaves, the work asks how interpersonal and relational dynamics are affected by the embodiment of a virtual and physical grid.
Branching from the physical structure, an underlining virtual world, initiated through pulsing LEDs, synchronizes the body with the objectified grid. Via EEG, data streams from this body-light alignment to cosmic soundscapes, filling the room through an organization of code and physiological information. Interested in understanding the implications of technologically mediated somatic practice, middleton utilizes EEG sensors to reflect on the social, cultural, economic, and ecological implications of bio-information mined through personal devices, and grid-like mentalities. In a critique of Cartesian dualist philosophy, which separates body-matter, Res Extensa, from mind-consciousness, Res Cogitans, Res Nodus asks how big data analytics, automation, and AI, are shaping sensory experience, relationality, and cultivating body-culture through new evolutions of the grid.
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Artistic Director: ashley middleton
Technical Director: Aga Czeszumska
Research & Development: EDGE: Neuroscience & Art, Dr Laura Kaltwasser, Enya Weidner
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Generously supported by:
Arts Council England, OpenBCI
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CURATOR:
Vanessa Giorgo
ashley middleton
ashley middleton is an artist, researcher, and curator; working in a range of media, including photography, sound, sculpture, and installation. Her multidisciplinary projects explore psyche, soma, quantum entanglement, and the production of world-matter through a posthuman feminist phenomenological perspective. Drawing on inspiration from disparate perspectives - such as those of Katherine Hayles, Astrida Neimanis, Donna Haraway and Karen Barad - her work considers how bodies are assembled in, and through, the intra-connections of matter, molecule, and media. Rhizomatic methodologies, embodiment practices, and cosmic attunements are fundamental to the research and production of her work.
middleton has exhibited at State Studio, Berlin; Inter Arts Center, Malmo; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; Photoville, NYC; Rencontres d’Arles, Arles; and Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao. She has been awarded Stiftung Kunstfonds NEUSTART KULTUR Grant (2022), Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Residency Scholarship (2021), and the Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant (2020).
Vanessa Giorgo
Vanessa Giorgo is an independent curator, facilitator and organiser, currently based in London. Through her projects, she explores topics from a conceptual perspective, aiming to raise awareness on contemporary socio-political matters and to promote the arts on all levels of life. Identifying diverse phenomena, she researches questions via collaborative processes and by utilising theoretical and practical approaches, leading to engaging shows. She considers human interactions and knowledge exchange themselves as art and focuses on fostering alternatives modes of being and creating. Her interests are centred on the concepts of identity, politics and on current societal topics, examined through multimedia exhibitions and prompting from her everyday encounters. Her interdisciplinary training and multicultural upbringing provide her with a wide variety of creative approaches.
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She has worked for multiple art fairs and art organisations, such as the Onassis Stegi Foundation in Athens, Art Athina, The Beany House of Art & Knowledge, TOMA (The Other MA), Studio 3 Gallery, And.What.Queer.Arts.Festival, Ugly Duck, The Feminist Library, Crafts Central, Unit 3 Projects at ASC Studios, One Paved Court Gallery, Exposed Arts and other institutions between the UK and Greece. She is currently in the Management group Feminist Library in London and coordinates the organisation's Curatorial Team.
Aga Czeszumska
Aga Czeszumska is a scientist-turned-engineer, interested in sensory extension and cross-modal perception. Drawing on her experience in astronomy and experimental nuclear physics, she builds electronic devices to sonically explore the world.
Georgia Perkins
Georgia Perkins is a tutor and doctoral candidate in the Visual Cultures Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, visiting lecturer at Winchester School of Art, and curatorial fellow at SIRIUS, Cork. Her research critically examines the molecular scale, indeterminacy and the sensible. At SIRIUS, she has worked on numerous exhibitions and events with artists and writers such as Daniela Ortiz, Chila Kumari Burman, Shen Xin, Marie Brett, Anton Vidokle, Gregory Sholette, Amanda Rice, and The White Pube. She is currently a researcher connected to the Spatial Practices in Art and ArChitecture for Empathetic EXchange (SPACEX-Rise) EU Funded Project, and is undertaking secondments with the Royal College of Art, Coventry University and University of Northampton. She is a core member of the Liquidity Cohort and Counterfield Collective. She was recently a Guest Lecturer for the HILMA Network for Gender Studies and has given papers at conferences for the LSFRC research group (2020), University of Dundee (2020), Université de Montréal (2022), and The Photographer’s Gallery/LCC (2022).
