Beyond the Interface Exhibtion @ ISMAR 2014 Munich

Featuring artists: Erica Scourti, Jennifer Chan, Nick Briz, Julian Oliver, Mez Breeze, Heath Bunting, Pierre Proske, Genetic Moo, Zach Blas,

Panel Speakers: Tatiana Bazzichelli, Annetta Domz, Wolf Lieser, Thomas Grundnigg, Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, and Julian Stadon.


The interface is the boundary across which information is exchanged, causing a transformation in one or both sides of that boundary. This exhibition features art that disrupts or bypasses this interface. Interfaces have always been a site of control, hidden in plain view: symbolic, social or technological. They facilitate and shape the dialogue that happens between different tribes from religions, scientific or philosophical backgrounds; between components of computer systems; or between machines and living beings.

Technological/designed interfaces deploy audiovisual and tactile inputs with touch screens, mice, joysticks and buttons on our mobile phones, games consoles, televisions, radios and laptops. Amazed and engaged, we forget to question how we might be being dominated and reprogrammed by the very facilities that were supposed to free us as part of the Digital Revolution. Lori Emerson suggests this is an “overwhelming push to disempower users/consumers with closed devices”.1

The artists in this exhibition, critical practitioners in art and technology, lift the veil on contemporary interfaces; setting out alternative routes, aesthetic visions and disruptive behaviours.

[1] Against the Frictionless Interface! An Interview with Lori Emerson