THRESHOLDS by Ray Sweeten & Lisa Gwilliam

THRESHOLDS: new works by Lisa Gwilliam & Ray Sweeten:

Using .gifs as a mediation for the moving image and an architecture of chance, gate controls and evolving states, Lisa Gwilliam and Ray Sweeten (DataSpaceTime) construct an environment where narrative and recognition are viewed as a series of unworkable topologies.

In “the _____ of strings and objects” two Large format screens provide the starting point for a series of videos that have been broken down into 32X18 pixel grids of animated gifs. The grids shift from screen to screen and pixel to pixel through a structured system of commands and responses passing through a web socket subnet. An additional browser screen presents a audio-visual legend or map of the relationships, states and commands at play in the two larger screens, synthesized in real time. 

Thresholds continues their exploration of the culture of informatics. The obfuscation of information, the emergence of asynchronous modes of transmission, the market-driven propensity towards higher and higher resolutions. By exploiting the potential for higher information resolution in the .gifs, the moving image paradoxically resists its intended function.

Screen Shot 2013-11-18 at 12.56.01 PM

The second piece, “if (an index) is occupied;” is a single monitor work based on the same technology as the first, while offering a look at the control structures present in the languages used. The work contains images of the code the artists wrote to generate the works, as well as the web socket protocol specifications. While generated by language, what is seen is no longer that language, but an aestheticized by-product of its execution.

“the _____ of strings and objects”
(2) 60″ flatscreen monitors, (1) 19″ monitor, Linux PC, Wireless Router (subnet), Chrome browser
25,920 animated .gifs, Javascript/CSS/HTML, node.js Web Sockets Server
approx. 30′ loop, 2013

“if (an index) is occupied;”
(1) 24″ flatscreen monitor, Linux PC laptop
5,760 animated .gifs, Javascript/CSS/HTML
approx. 10′ loop, 2013

On view until Dec 1 at microscope gallery.


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