[spectre] How to Talk to Images - Exhibition by Richard Wright

[marc garrett]

How to Talk to Images
Exhibition by Richard Wright
at HTTP Gallery.

4th July - 3rd August 2008
Opening Reception: Friday 4th July 6-9pm
Exhibition open: Fri-Sun 12noon-5pm
www.http.uk.net

No one is sure how many images there are on the Internet. Google has 
nearly a billion. Some say it is hundreds of times more than that. 
People say that you can find a picture of anything on the internet, as 
though the entire visual world is reflected there.

For How to Talk to Images at London's HTTP Gallery, Richard Wright has 
compiled a database of 50,000 random Internet images as the raw content 
for two artworks. The Internet Speaks and The Mimeticon both explore new 
conceptions of the image, called for by the sheer quantity of visual 
information now available via the Internet.

In this era, finding our way through the world of images is so 
overwhelming, that the dominant mode is to “search” rather than to 
“see”. An image is an answer to a question, a search query. The Internet 
Speaks gives us one of the simplest imaginable ways of searching this 
set of images, stepping through them, one by one in random order, 
without context. In contrast, The Mimeticon is a wilfully complex and 
‘baroque’ search engine that allows us to search for images by visual 
similarity rather than by typing in keywords. These 'search images' are 
'drawn' by us using letters from the history of the alphabet.
As part of How to Talk to Images, Richard Wright’s first solo exhibition 
in London, a selection of Wright’s animated films demonstrates the 
development of his current interest in the Baroque. The exhibition is 
also the occasion of publication of a limited-edition poster featuring 
an essay by the artist illustrated by the entire visual history of the 
Western alphabet – from its pictorial Egyptian origins 5,000 years ago 
to its perfected form under the Romans, as well as a new book 
documenting the artists twenty year long practice.

Richard Wright is a visual artist working in the fields of digital 
moving image and networked interaction. During the 1990s, Richard was 
one of the pioneers of digital animation as a distinct artistic form, 
with films being shown at numerous festivals and exhibitions and 
broadcast by television channels around the world. In 1998 he received a 
PhD in the aesthetics of digital film making and has published nearly 
forty book chapters, articles and reviews. In 2004 he joined Mongrel – 
an artists group internationally recognized for their work in software 
art and 'free-media'. Since 2007 Richard has been Artist in Residence at 
Furtherfield.org in London.

HTTP Gallery
Unit A2, Arena Design Centre,
71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY.
Friday - Sunday: 12noon - 5pm
http://www.http.uk.net

HTTP Gallery is Furtherfield.org’s (www.furtherfield.org) dedicated 
space for exhibiting networked media art. Furtherfield.org is a 
not-for-profit, artist-led organisation. Based in Harringay, North 
London, we provide an online and physical platform for creating, 
exhibiting, commissioning, and discussing networked media arts.