Jessica Angel: AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

“The ‘Strange Loop’ phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.”
-Douglas Hofstadter

The solar system can easily be paralleled with the “basic” unit of matter, the atom. Operations of a colossal city are analogous to the miniature calculations of a computer. Phenomena of any system occur every instant, simultaneously, on small and large scales. I am interested in exploring these patterns and parallel realities, this duality between the vast and the minute. The deeper into the minute one goes, the closer one gets to understanding the large and vice versa.

I have chosen two specific analogies to embody the idea of the minute and the vast as equivalents 1) the relationship between the outer space and the digital information space and 2) the similarity between urban planning and computer integrated circuits.

To work around this dichotomy I will create an immersive installation that takes over the southern room of the AC Institute. I plan to “invert” these two ideas representing the “large” in a small scale and the “minute” in an outsized scale, emphasizing the concept of the strange loop and the cyclic patterns. The installation will make reference to the micro world of computers correlation with outer space phenomena.

-Jessica Angel

BIO:
Jessica Angel is a visual artist living and working between Bogota and New York. Her recent and upcoming projects aim to foster cross-disciplinary initiatives. She was invited to represent Colombia as an artist in residence at the 2014 Vancouver Biennale, where she will develop a project enabling forms of collaboration among sciences, philosophy, music, art and new media. In 2013 she organized Pintura Abierta, a collaborative project that prompted the circulation of ideas about painting. In an attempt to consider this language through its practice, the creation and reflection laboratory gathered different proposals by Colombian painters by means of on-site paintings. The project took place in the Parqueadero space of the Museo del Banco de la República.

While living in New York City Jessica has been awarded the Teaching-Artist Residency at the Cooper Union, the BRIC Media Arts Fellowship (2012), City Walls with the Brooklyn Arts Council (2010) and the BOFFO Artist in Residence (2009). She has exhibited solo at Juan Salas Gallery (2012), The Museum of Modern Art of Bucaramanga (2008), at the Salamanca University Cultural Center in Bogotá (2008), at The Project Room of Los Andes University in Bogota and at Casas Riegner Gallery (2006 and 2009). Her work has been exhibited both locally and abroad in cities like Bogota, New York, Miami, Washington, Rosario, La Paz and Mexico. In 2007 she received an honorable mention at the 4th International Biennial SIART, Bolivia and at the 1st Drawing Biennial of the Americas, Mexico (2006).
www.jessicaangelarts.com