Variablemedia Event

VM.01
John Paul Bichard
Richard Couzins
Michelle Deignan
Edward Dorrian
Simon Goodwin
Cliona Harmey
Dennis McNulty
Sally Morfill
Slateford

The Hoxton Distillery, above the Macbeth, 70 Hoxton Street, London N1
Sound performance and launch 7pm 19th June
Exhibition open from 2pm-6pm on 20th, 21st and 22nd June

Variablemedia is pleased to announce VM.01 at the Hoxton Distillery
gallery London from the 19th until the 22nd of June. Marking a year of
on-line artists' residencies at www.variablemedia.org, VM.01 will both
present and elaborate on all 6 of the first years on-line projects. The
www.variablemedia.org site has hosted artists based in England, Scotland
and the Republic of Ireland. Some regularly make work for the Internet,
for others their Variablemedia project was their first on-line work.
These website projects will be presented on computers in the gallery
space alongside new and related works by all of the involved artists,
most made specifically for this exhibition. These works encompass a wide
spectrum of media including drawings, digital prints, video and audio.
Some artworks will be available in multiples, for visitors to take away
for free.

VM.01 begins on the evening of the 19th of June at 7pm with a live sound
performance in the exhibition space by audio artist and musician Dennis
McNulty. McNulty (one half of acclaimed Dublin based electronica duo
Decal) collaborated with visual artist Cliona Harmey on the inaugural
project at www.variablemedia.org. 'SeaPoint'. Using a computer based
instrument he is currently developing he will incorporate audio elements
of this work with recordings of his journey from Dublin, Ireland to the
gallery on the day of the event creating a sonic vapour trail to link
the two cities. Documentation of his performance will subsequently form
part of the exhibition.

Current Variablemedia resident, artist, writer and games designer John
Paul Bichard will be giving a talk at the Hoxton Distillery about his
project 'Staying in to Play' (on-line now at www.variablemedia.org) at
3pm on Sunday 22nd June.

Variablemedia seeks to break down boundaries between fine-art and
"net.art/digital art" practices and audiences. While addressing the
internet as a potent and particular creative space through the online
projects, VM.01 integrates and contextualises art made specifically for
the internet with other contemporary art practices. With the web
projects there is an emphasis on 'on-site' development; each project
must change and develop during the residency period. Though democratic
and easily accessible for the public a virtual space can be a lonely one
to reside in as an artist. VM.01, Variablemedia's first gallery based
event, will enable the artist's and the public to see these projects
both in relation to each other and to the artists' wider concerns.

The www.variablemedia.org site presents the current artist's project
directly to the public, without an interface imposed by Variablemedia. A
separate site; www.variablemedia.info provides explanatory material
about current and past projects, links to past projects and
documentation or archives of those. After VM.01 remaining archived
projects will be removed from the Variablemedia server, leaving only the
descriptions of the works and links, where such exists, to their new
location. VM.01 represents a last chance to see some of the work
produced in Variablemedia's first year of residencies.

Variablemedia is delighted that a number of the projects originally
conceived for the .org site have continued to evolve after the artists'
residency. Os_anm by Slateford (Simon Yuill and Tryggve Askildsen) the
fifth Variablemedia project has continued its online development with a
commission by Montevideo in Amsterdam (http://www.playingfield.net).
This version 2 extends the pixel animation software's capabilities to
manipulate live video streams.

For more information about Variablemedia and the artists visit
http://www.variablemedia.info or contact
[email protected]. For Variablemedia's current project visit
http://www.variablemedia.org

Variablemedia's next resident artists are John Hanson & Richard Paul.
Their project 'Working Lunch' begins at www.variablemedia.org on the 6th
of July 2003.