PERRY HOBERMAN at Postmasters - opens jan 7, reception sat the 11th

Happy 2003 from Postmistess to all!!!
following is a press release for Perry Hoberman show opening on January 7.


for immediate release:
january 7 - february 9, 2003
PERRY HOBERMAN
'Accept"

opening reception: saturday, january 11, 6-8 pm

Postmasters Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works
by Perry Hoberman, an artist whose works we have shown since 1986.
Hoberman is one of the pioneers of new media art, having addressed
the form, content, and social implications of media technology for
over twenty years. In this exhibition working in a mix of new and old
media, Hoberman tackles one of our current dilemmas: in a world of
ever-increasingly "powerful" media technologies, our own power to
creatively make use these technologies is under constant threat on a
variety of fronts. Restrictions and surveillance are being hard-coded
into the hardware, software and networks we use daily in a process
that seems determined to make us little more than fodder for an
ever-more-profitable army of passive and fearful consumers.

Several works in the show satirize the endless attempts to price and
profit from what has become known as "intellectual property" - a term
that emphasizes ownership above all. One artwork begins to evaluate
itself as soon as it snares a viewer, comparing its own effectiveness
to other mediums (such as cinema), based on how much time is
necessary for each experience. Another piece requires the viewer to
accept a stringent End User License Agreement (standard texts
required to install software) before s/he can look at the work.

The prints in the series "OK/Cancel" are based on the ubiquitous
dialog boxes that appear whenever we open, save, close, delete, or do
anything at all with the files on our computers. These messages are
some of the most direct communications between user and operating
system, and although they often seem helpful, they tend towards a
certain arrogance, making them ripe for satire. Each print is
available in any of four different operating systems: Macintosh OS 9,
Macintosh OS X, Microsoft Windows 98, and Microsoft Windows XP.

The prints comprising the series "My Life in Spam" consist of
superimposed images of every spam email message that Hoberman
received over a given period of time. Since deciding to save his
spam in 1998, Hoberman has amassed an archive of approximately 6,000
useless, often offensive messages. Hoberman notes that the rate of
spam has been increasing at a faster rate than computer processing
power (defined by Moore's Law as doubling every 18 months) - the
amount of spam he has received has tripled (on average) each year. He
now receives more spam in a day than he received in three months in
1998, and at the current rate of increase expects to be receiving
about 1,000 a day by the end of 2006.These prints function as a
method to visualize the increasing onslaught of unsolicited
advertising, but they're also an attempt to transform an utterly
debased form of communication into something attractive, even
beautiful. Depending on the dates and the length of time (a day, week
or month) represented in each print, the images range from faint
lines of partially legible text to intricate washes of intense color.

A series of multi-layered stereoscopic curtains consist of
transparent mylar surfaces covered with enigmatic red/blue
silhouettes. When seen through anaglyphic viewers (built into the
works) the silhouettes appear to hover unsupported in the air. The
silhouettes (of figures, animals and objects) combine to create
free-form narrative moments. These low-tech works continue a longtime
interest in stereoscopic and other optical phenomena, and in some
ways represent a return to work that Hoberman made during the 1980s.
In a more high-tech vein, a parallel screen-based work is shown on a
Synthagram monitor, a recently-invented autostereoscopic display.

Several works deal with iconography of the All-Seeing Eye, recently
repurposed as the symbol of John Poindexter's "Total Information
Awareness System", thus shifting its meaning from a suggestion of
divine omniscence to a more earthbound ideal of total surveillance.
In these artworks, various eyeballs attempt to see everything
everywhere, with decidedly mixed results.

Perry Hoberman has exhibited internationally, with major shows
throughout the USA and Europe. His work is currently on view in the
"Future Cinema" exhibition at the ZKM Center for New Media in
Karlsruhe. Hoberman has been the recipient of numerous grants and
awards, and is both a 2002 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a 2002
Rockefeller Foundation Media Art Fellow.

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Postmasters Gallery, located in Chelsea at 459 West 19th Street
(corner of 10th Avenue), is open Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 6
pm. Please contact Magdalena Sawon with any questions that you might
have.
http://www.postmastersart.com
[email protected] or [email protected]