Talk
Somerset House Studios

Defrag: Commercial Technologies feat. Werkflow and The White Pube

FREE
Tue 31 Oct 2017
18.45 - 20.30
G16
New Wing

A new event series exploring the role technology plays in the development, production and consumption of art and culture.

Memes, video games, social media, post-production techniques and generative algorithms: in 2017, new technologies and internet culture offer artists infinite possibilities and few technical limits. As consumers and remote critics, we click, scroll and like our way through these digital spaces, comforted and besieged by hyperactive content streams which present us with an increasingly fragmented and chaotic view of the world.

Defrag explores confusion, control, creativity, appropriation and resilience, delving into the practice of artists, designers and thinkers utilising and critiquing the latest tools and questioning the realities of our newly augmented human experience. Featuring the work and practices of Somerset House Studios residents and invited guests, the night is structured as a live navigation through artists’ digital footprints, alongside some collective internet browsing.

In this first talk, artists, critics and curators The White Pube meet with Studios residents Werkflow to discuss the role of commercial technologies such as social media and game engines in the creation and consumption of art.

Curated by Jake Charles Rees in collaboration with Somerset House Studios.

OTHER EVENTS IN THE SERIES

Mon 04 Dec 2017
Tue 09 Jan 2018
Tue 13 Feb 2018
Tue 13 Mar 2018
Tue 10 Apr 2018


Biographies

The White Pube is the collaborative practice of artists Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad under which they write criticism, exhibit, and curate. It is based at thewhitepube.com and on Instagram and Twitter as @thewhitepube. Since its launch in October 2015, they have gained an international readership and an involved social media following due to their success in diversifying the identity of the art critic and empowering two writers as working class and one as a woman of colour. TWP write to demand artistic quality from practitioners and institutions, decolonise and democratise gallery audiences, and encourage subjective criticism as an accessible and relevant form of art writing. They were recently critics-in-residence at Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, and are also in residence at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.

Werkflow is a games engine-focused digital art studio, who are resident at Somerset House Studios. Established by Tom Wandrag and James Stringer, their practice is varied, working across art, fashion, design and games. They have created installations, virtual reality projects, music videos and computer games, and their work has been covered in the press including The Wire magazine, The Creators Project and Art Monthly. werkflow.co.uk