Pall Thayer. "wassup, tYgEr_lil_E?"
Nov 15 - Dec 8, 2006
closed for Thanksgiving Nov 22-25

nov 15: discussion with artist and reception 2-5pm
2nd floor, 163 William Street

Wassup, tYgEr_lil_E? is an examination of the impact of digital media on abstract art. The title references Woody
Allen's film, "What's up, Tiger Lily?" (1966) from which it borrows a simple idea: dubbing a foreign movie's dialogue with completely unrelated text, in an attempt to alter the story. "wassup, tYgEr_lil_E?" captures images from live video feeds and provides on-screen subtitles with text captured from live Internet chat sessions. I have made no attempt to match images to text. Computers have no conscious understanding of the subject material they are being made to appropriate. Therefore the result, being generated by automated computer processes, becomes an abstraction.

Nevertheless, the sources of the images and text being appropriated are important to the concept of this work.
The text is taken from live chat channels on MySpace.com, the most popular of the self-styled "social websites". Such websites have generated enormous controversy, compelling some politicians to propose legislation that would regulate user access. Images of these politicians, captured from CSPAN.org, provide the visual source material. The results may be unpredictable, humorous, non-sensical or shocking. However, as is the case with much abstract art, interpretation of the outcome is left to the viewer.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Pall Thayer (1968) is an Icelandic artist working with computers and the Internet. He graduated from the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1999 with a background in mixed-media. As a Nord-Plus grant recipient at the Helsinki Academy of Art, he began experimenting with computers and the Internet as artistic media in 1997. Since then he has created several works that explore different methods of interaction in the creation of generative, real-time audio/visual abstractions through the Internet. His current work focuses on the automated appropriation and mixing of publicly available material as a means of interaction. His work has been exhibited widely at festivals and group shows such as Nordic Interactive in Copenhagen, Transmediale in Berlin, The Boston CyberArts Festival, Hipersonica/File in
Sao Paulo and PixxelPoint in Slovenia. He has lectured and participated in panels at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, PixxelPoint and ISEA2004. In 2004 he organized the Trans-Cultural Mapping: Iceland Inside and Out workshop in
locative media for Lorna, The Icelandic Organization for Electronic Arts, of which he is an active member. He is
currently pursuing his MFA at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

~Programmed in Perl, Java and Pure Data

~Pace Digital Gallery wishes to thank Pace students Herbie Gilot and Bennett Pursell, whose programming skills and tireless work made this program possible.

The exhibition is made possible, in part, by funding from CIAM

Pall Thayer's website http://www.this.is/pallit