RECODE Online Exhibition . PCD23@Porto
In the current context of constant search for innovation, there is a proliferation of computational solutions that claim to be innovative but often hide technological heritage and appropriations. Given this, the RECODE theme emerges as an opportunity to discuss computational approaches that point to issues of the current maker culture without disregarding its historical path. After all, how can our creative work favor a more expressive and dialogical post-digital ecology?
RECODE interpretations and practices have encouraged contemporary creative coding based on shared knowledge in the community where the idea of library and data sets, for example, are points we must look for. It also has conceiving teaching strategies whose development of theoretical and practical repertoire is not dissociated from the political and social effects of computational media, such as representation, responsibility, accessibility, inclusion, obsolescence, and exploitation of natural resources. Moreover, RECODE brings us closer to the challenges provoked by the contexts of techno-cultural convergences and remediations.
In this online exhibition, you will find 18 works by artists, designers, researchers, professionals, and students that reflect the post-digital culture they are a part of. As an exhibition, it has the uniqueness of bringing together a range of computational strategies that explore the notion of RECODE, from the levels of the intentionality of the code and its expressive performance to the materials and subjects through which they speak.
We begin with a group of works that challenge the common sense of processing, revisiting procedural trials resolved in digital systems (Jeff Thompson). By exploring possible information pathways (Pierre Coric), they give light on materialities and algorithmic procedures that develop beyond the environment of digital computational media (Liz Melchor; Pedro Alegria).
By promoting a plural movement of investigating and decoding previous artworks by artists and designers (Nicolas Lebrun) through contemporary tools, some creators set out to carry their codes forward through speculative models (claromes) and shared knowledge with the community (Alexandre Villares).
They also show how digital manipulation, algorithmic procedures, and generative strategies can convert previous content into abstract and ephemeral representations of thought and code processes (Linda Loh, Hannah Yan). In addition, there are those presented as tools (Marie Malarme) that make the previous image files the canvas for real-time expression of the code.
By exploring digital materials through repetition and randomness, they subvert the structure and meaning of these contents as a reflection on the effects of digital culture (David Bouchard). Also directing attention to how data-driven algorithms have taken over information from social media (Cyrus Khalatbari) and our everyday life (Tansy Xiao). By proposing interactive representations to deal with complex data networks (Carolina Mendonça and Eduardo Vitorino), they call for action beyond the digital screen.
Some projects make the audience's movements and bodies part of the work. These are installations that, through real-time capture, highlight feedback and play as essential elements of empathy (Amenda Tate). At the same time, sort of like contemporary mirrors (Aya Shabbar), they provoke the estrangement of being in front of an unstable and fragmented reflection (Eduarda Duarte; Jéssica Parente, Luís Gonçalo and Collective Biits.UC).
The works selected for the PCD23 Online Exhibition are an invitation to perceive the overlaps and transformations of contemporary culture from the perspective of the creative code and the computational environment.
- Camila Mangueira
- Curator of the RECODE Online Exhibition