Motor Studies Opening Reception
October 7, 2021 @ 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Holland Project Galleries is excited to showcase Raphel Arar’s, “Moter Studies”.
Attention is now an input, raw material and ultimately a currency that focuses our awareness and decides when, where and how we attend to a particular item of information. We are bound to our devices, controlled by notifications from software agents that vie for our attention. Be they a simple red dot with a number, a slight haptic vibration or a delicate chime, the computers in our pockets serve as an interface to a digital ecosystem of capitalist contenders all of whom carefully comb our data, curate our digital experience and drive the attention economy.
Motor Studies serves as a metaphor of this digital ecosystem. Each sculpture consists of a single gesture intended to represent the physical embodiment of a notification and its demands for our attention. The exhibition transforms the gallery into an operating system complete with its set of apps that seek to temporally and immersively attract, engage and ultimately distract participants as they navigate the space.
Raphael Arar works at the nexus of complex systems, transdisciplinary design and arts-based research. His work highlights the social, political and economic implications of technological acceleration and human-to-machine interaction. His media often incorporates kinetic, sculptural elements connected through coded interfaces that invite participant interaction. His artwork has been shown at museums, conferences, festivals and galleries internationally including the ZKM | Center for Art and Media, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Gamble House Museum, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, and Athens Video Art Festival. Commercially, his design work has been featured in publications including TED, Inc. Magazine, FastCompany, Wired and others.
Organized by Tyler Calkin
