University at Buffalo (UB)
Published October 25, 2021
Paul Vanouse and Tina Rivers Ryan Co-Curate Exhibition at Albright-Knox
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s art installation, “WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT.”
Photo by Kara Anderson | The Spectrum
The show features 17 artists, confronts visitors with interactive and thought-provoking works
This artical is reproduced from "the Spectrum"
Albright-Knox exhibit highlights technology and identity through art
October 19, 2021 | 9:57pm EDT
There’s a room with hot pink walls. It’s secluded from the noise of the crowd, naked except for a black gaming chair, a pedestal fixed with primary colored buttons and a TV screen exploding in kaleidoscope-esque designs.
You sit in the chair, the TV looming above you, pink fluorescent lights humming. The screen says to press any button to start.
You do.
For the next 20 minutes, you are launched into a haunting adventure game regarding Black trans identity, ancestry and allyship.
Except, this isn’t only a visceral video game. It’s Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s art installation, “WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT,” now a part of Albright-Knox Northland’s newest exhibition, “Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art.”
The art exhibit, co-curated by UB art professor Paul Vanouse and assistant curator Tina Rivers Ryan, features 17 artists whose interactive works explore the manner in which technology shapes our lives, from the exploration of identity through digital tools to the examination of surveillance. The free exhibit opened Oct. 16 and will run through Jan. 16, 2022.
Vanouse and Ryan intended to create a space where people can hone their grasp on the ways in which technology interacts with themselves and the world.
“You can think of this [show] as being somewhere between a regular exhibition, a film festival and a library,” Vanouse said.
Yet, despite this daunting description as a hybrid center of artistic creation, Ryan and Vanhouse placed a focus on making the space accessible to newcomers.
“We wanted to create an exhibition where people who don’t have that technical expertise or knowledge could come in and learn something about the technologies that are governing literally every aspect of our lives,” Ryan said.
Similarly, Vanouse also emphasized how identity shapes this space and learning process.
“Everything kind of kept coming back to this question of identity and how digital tools inform identities,” Vanouse said. “In some ways they construct them, in some ways limit them.”
Albright Knox Northland
612 Northland Ave
Buffalo, NY 14211
Oct. 16 through Jan. 16, 2022
FREE
for a complete listing of all the artists included in the show visit the Albright Knox Northland website