Not Here show at the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Richard Rinehart, r.rinehart@bucknell.edu, 570-577-3213
Not Here
June 4 – November 27, 2011
Lewisburg, PA, June 4, 2011 – The Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University is very
pleased to announce that we will not be presenting the augmented reality artwork of the
art collective, MANIFEST.AR from June 4 through November 27, 2011. This collective,
famous for using augmented reality technology to “hijack” an exhibition at MOMA in
2010, has focused its latest intervention on an even bigger art world target, the 2011
Venice Biennale. From the collective’s Venice Biennale AR Intervention manifesto,
“As ‘one of the world's most important forums for the dissemination and
'illumination' about the current developments in international art" the
54th Biennial of Venice could not justify its reputation without an
uninvited Manifest.AR Augmented Reality infiltration. In order to
"challenge the conventions through which contemporary art is viewed"
we have constructed virtual AR pavilions directly amongst the 30-odd
buildings of the lucky few within the Giardini. In accordance with the
"ILLUMInations" theme and Bice Curiger's 5 questions our uninvited
participation will not be bound by nation-state borders, by physical
boundaries or by conventional art world structures.”
The Venice Biennale has not invited MANIFEST.AR to exhibit these artworks. The
Samek Art Gallery has invited the artists to not exhibit the works. MANIFEST.AR’s
Venice Biennale 2011 AR Intervention descends from the artistic lineage of Salons des
Refusés and Institutional Critique. This project imbues healthy critique with a sense of
play and offers a new lens through which to view questions of absence and presence,
of center and periphery. Artists from Marcel Duchamp to Michael Asher to Andrea
Fraser have shown that when an artist gestures beyond the limits of the current art
world, they do not leave that world behind; instead they expand its borders.
MANIFEST.AR is expanding the art world in a discursive sense as well as
technologically and spatially.
The Venice Biennale 2011 AR Intervention includes artworks by Tamiko Thiel, Sander
Veenhof, Mark Skwarek, Will Pappenheimer, John Craig Freeman, Lily & Honglei, John
Cleater, and Naoko Tosa.
The Samek Art Gallery is closed for the summer; please do not visit looking for these
groundbreaking artworks. They are not here* The Gallery will also not be hosting a gala
dinner at the Cipriani Hotel in Venice to honor the artists.
* While they are not inside The Gallery, these artworks have been dropped off, virtually,
outside the doors of The Gallery and they have spilled out of the building across the
Bucknell University campus. To view these artworks on-site, follow the instructions
below. These artworks can be viewed from only two places on Earth: Venice, Italy and
Lewisburg, PA. They can be not viewed from anywhere.
Augmented Reality
Unlike Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality is the art of overlaying virtual content on top of
physical reality. Using AR apps on smart phones, viewers look at the real world around
them through their phone’s camera lens, while the app inserts additional images or 3D
objects into the scene. For instance, a plaza that is “in reality” empty, might contain a
crystal coffin or psychotropic toad when viewed through an AR-enabled Smartphone.
MANIFEST.AR writes, “The increased availability of free Augmented Reality viewers on
mobile phones has brought this technology out of the lab and created a participatory
form of mass media.”
Instructions
The AR artworks can only be seen in Venice or Lewisburg in the display of a
smartphone using the free Layar augmented reality browser:
- on a smartphone (Android, or iPhone 3GS or higher)
- go to the web page
http://www.willpap-projects.com/AR/Web_APP/Not_Here_Launch_App.html
- then select an artwork, then launch
- (if Layar is not installed, select “Download app” first)
Related Links
Page to Launch Artworks (on mobile device in Venice or Lewisburg)
http://www.willpap-projects.com/AR/Web_APP/Not_Here_Launch_App.html
Google Map Locations of Artworks on Bucknell Campus
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=20147517172518274
2945.0004a4bd637bba3db15ef&t=h&ll=40.957693,-
76.883644&spn=0.0041,0.008261&z=17
MANIFEST.AR Venice Biennale 2011 AR Intervention Manifesto
(includes list of artist and artworks)
http://manifestarblog.wordpress.com/venice2011/
Credit
Not Here was curated by Samek Art Gallery director, Richard Rinehart.
About the Samek Art Gallery
The Samek Art Gallery is an academic art laboratory that serves the students, the
university community and region through innovative exhibitions and programming that
focuses primarily on the art of our time. The Gallery organizes diverse and
interdisciplinary programs of noteworthy art, artists, scholars and critics from around
the US and the globe. The Gallery is open to the public seven days a week during the
academic year, with the exceptions of university recesses and between exhibitions.
Exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.
Gallery Location
Samek Art Gallery!
Bucknell University !
Lewisburg, PA 17837
The Samek Art Gallery is located in the heart of Bucknell University’s campus, on the
third floor of the Elaine Langone Center, on the corner of Moore Street and Seventh
Avenue.
Information
Phone 570.577.3792
Fax 570.577.3215
Website
http://www.bucknell.edu/samek