Archive of Darkness:William Kentridge's Black Box/Chambre Noire

Situating itself in histories of cinema and installation art, William Kentridge's Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005) raises questions about screens, exhibition space, site-specificity and spectatorship. Through his timely intervention in a debate on Germany’s colonial past, Kentridge’s postcolonial art has contributed to the recognition and remembrance of a forgotten, colonial genocide. This article argues that, by transposing his signature technique of drawings for projection onto a new set of media, Kentridge explores how and what we can know through cinematic projection in the white cube. In particular, his metaphor of the illuminated shadow enables him to animate archival fragments as shadows and silhouettes. By creating a multi-directional archive, Black Box enables an affective engagement with the spectres of colonialism and provides a forum for the calibration of moral questions around reparation, reconciliation and forgiveness

The Composite Task Reveals Stronger Holistic Processing in Children than Adults for Child Faces

Background: While own-age faces have been reported to be better recognized than other-age faces, the underlying cause of this phenomenon remains unclear. One potential cause is holistic face processing, a special kind of perceptual and cognitive processing reserved for perceiving upright faces. Previous studies have indeed found that adults show stronger holistic processing when looking at adult faces compared to child faces, but whether a similar own-age bias exists in children remains to be shown. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we used the composite face task – a standard test of holistic face processing – to investigate if, for child faces, holistic processing is stronger for children than adults. Results showed child participants (8–13 years) had a larger composite effect than adult participants (22–65 years). Conclusions/Significance: Our finding suggests that differences in strength of holistic processing may underlie the ownage bias on recognition memory. We discuss the origin of own-age biases in terms of relative experience, face-space tuning, and social categorization

The Influencers: Van Gogh Immersive Experiences and the Attention-Experience Economy

Van Gogh immersive exhibitions—multi-sited, branded multimedia environments inspired by the artist’s life and paintings—are seemingly ubiquitous in 2022. These itinerant digital spectacles bundle reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh’s most recognizable artistic motifs with tropes of fin-de-siècle madness, bathing their visitors in an artistic wonderland of projected images and soundscapes spread throughout cavernous exhibition venues. The popularity of these commercial juggernauts is unmatched. At present, at least five different companies are staging competing versions of digital Van Gogh art exhibitions in dozens of cities worldwide, with a particular emphasis at present on sites throughout North America. How are we as art critics to make sense of these exhibitions as well as their influence within the institutional context of the visual arts? Taking the digital Van Gogh phenomenon as its central case study, this article investigates the emerging art-themed immersive exhibition model and explores the specific mode of spectatorship it promotes. Situating these projects within the broader framework of the contemporaneous attention and experience economies, and with an eye toward the crucial role of social media, I propose that art-themed immersive exhibitions such as the Van Gogh immersive experiences exemplify habits of digitally-mediated, 24/7 immersive attention and consumption in art and in everyday life

Philomène Longpré : Transcendare : Oeuvres-systèmes sensibles = Responsive Art Systems

"TRANSCENDARE is a bilingual monograph curated by Christine Redfern that delves indepth into the extraordinary universe of the artist Philomène Longpré. A world of heightened sensations, where captivating creatures projected onto responsive video membranes live in darkened spaces awaiting the presence of the visitors. The power of Longpré’s art comes from her ability to blur the boundaries between the virtual and the real, as well as the visceral reactions she provokes. Through 260 pages with selected full-colour images and insightful texts by leading international writers Kate Mondloch, Florence de Mèredieu, David Howes, Alison Syme, Isa Tousignant, Christine Redfern and from Philomène Longpré herself, this book gives a unique opportunity to explore Longpré’s genius and her astounding contribution to contemporary art." -- Publisher's website

Media façades: When buildings perform

As media façades become more prevalent among cityscapes across the globe, these communities should consider regulating the power and presence of these large public cinema events which, until recently, have been contained in spaces outside the public view. The uncaging of this media form has pressed some governments to establish ordinances designed to protect the public but at a time when few in government, the arts, architecture, construction or the academy understand the ramifications of this emerging architecture movement. In this paper, we would like to address the impact structures of this nature might have over the cityscape and possible suggest aesthetic standards for this emerging architectural form