SMART THINKING
Pushing the boundaries of what constitutes ‘art’ is Simon Ingram’s specialty.
Pushing the boundaries of art is Simon Ingram’s specialty.
Auckland artist Simon Ingram challenges the notion of the artist by creating works with a painting robot that uses a brush to apply oil paint to canvas in response to computergenerated instructions. In 2018, Ingram created Monadic Device, an open cube framework containing the painting machine, an electroencephalography (EEG) headset and the computer. After a participant dons the headset, the machine paints according to electrical activities in the brain.
From late November, Ingram brings his painting machine to City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi for The Algorithmic Impulse, a display of work that leads to and follows from Monadic Device. For the show’s opening weekend, Ingram will wear the EEG headset to create new paintings using Monadic Device. Paintings will accumulate over the course of the show as other participants, including members of the public, will have the opportunity to wear the headset. The exhibition will also unveil a series of computer models employing regenerative agriculture approaches in a rule-based ecosystem. The environmental models were created under the auspices of Terrestrial Assemblages, a small art-science group started by Ingram to create awareness of and sensitivity to natural systems.
Since Ingram began making paintings using mechanical and electronic methods in 2004, his work has caused us to consider what constitutes ‘the artist’. As Ingram himself ponders, “What happens when painting-based gesture is there, rendered in thick and/or thin oil paint with hog hair brush, but the body and hand are completely absent?”
Simon Ingram: The Algorithmic Impulse
21 November–7 March, 2021
City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi