ARTIFICIAL HELL

Tate Smith

Artificial Hell is an interactive art piece documenting the exhibition as it unfolds. The work explores the phenomenological by exploiting the lacuna of machine-human interaction, as well as truth-making by virtue of its “unbiased” lens. The work is politically motivated while appearing apolitical and non-judgemental; it is a work that at its core is anarchist. Live imagery is filtered through the machine and transformed to create rough maps and outlines of interlocutors into the space creating vague references and phantasmagoria. Artificial Hell is motivated specifically by the mid 60’s French artist group GRAV’s manifesto Assez Des Mystifications wherein they state that states “If there is a social preoccupation in today’s art, then it must take into account this very social reality: the viewer...we want to make [them] participate. We want to place [them] in a situation [they] trigger and transform. We want [them] to be conscious of his participation…” Artificial Hell situates the viewer outside of the traditional hierarchy of the “white cube” gallery space, wherein the viewer becomes the art and the act of looking becomes the art-making; passive consumption of the spectacle is put into direct contrast with the constant memory-banking activity which forces the viewer directly to take part in the art and not accept its inanities carte blanche.

The title is an homage to Claire Bishop's seminal work on the politics of participation and spectatorship in art Artificial Hells.

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Goldsmiths, University of London
St James Hatcham Building

    Tate Smith

    Tate Smith is an American visual artist working across a broad variety of mediums. His work interrogates conventions, norms and mores through combative questioning of dominant narratives and the ontological conditions of what art is or what art can be. Smith’s work engages with art history as much as the present in order to tease out an uneasy balance via juxtaposition--what can be said of something old that is still true today? He grew up in a creative family, one parent a director and the other a designer, who nurtured an interest in the art scene from a very young age which informed his whimsical, childlike candor within the contemporary art discourse. Tate Smith’s studio is based out of Los Angeles. He has had shows in New York, Paris and Tehran and collectors all over the world.

    Tags
    Computational resistance  Bodies in relation  Memory bank   interactive  physical computing  illustration  

    Tate Smith

    Tate Smith is an American visual artist working across a broad variety of mediums. His work interrogates conventions, norms and mores through combative questioning of dominant narratives and the ontological conditions of what art is or what art can be. Smith’s work engages with art history as much as the present in order to tease out an uneasy balance via juxtaposition--what can be said of something old that is still true today? He grew up in a creative family, one parent a director and the other a designer, who nurtured an interest in the art scene from a very young age which informed his whimsical, childlike candor within the contemporary art discourse. Tate Smith’s studio is based out of Los Angeles. He has had shows in New York, Paris and Tehran and collectors all over the world.