The Aggregate Eye: 13 cities / 312,694 people / 2,353,017 photos

http://phototrails.net/exhibition/

Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, Old Westbury, New York. October 29 – December 5, 2013.

Co-curator: Hyewon Yi.

Artists: Nadav Hochman, Lev Manovich, and Jay Chow.

Lecture by Lev Manovich "From Atget to Instagram: Representing the City” and panel discussion with Lev Manovich, Nadav Hochman, Alise Tifentale, and Hyewon Yi, October 29, 2013.

Maps, photographs, and cinema are the principal technologies that individuals, small groups, and businesses traditionally have used to represent cities. Today, urban representations can be created by hundreds of millions of ordinary people who capture and share photos on social networks. If we were to aggregate these masses of photos, how would our cities look? How unique are the photos captured by each of us? Are there dominant themes regardless of location?

The Aggregate Eye, a project created by Nadav Hochman, Lev Manovich, and Jay Chow, investigates these questions. The collaborators downloaded and analyzed 2,353,017 Instagram photos shared by 312,694 people in thirteen cities over a three-month period. The large prints and video included in the exhibition combine these photos to reveal unique patterns. One set of images compares New York, Tokyo, and Bangkok using 150,00 Instagram photos. Another image, created by 53,498 photos taken in Tokyo over several days, depicts a gradual progression from day to night activities. A visualization of 23,581 photos shared in Brooklyn during Hurricane Sandy captures the dramatic narrative of that day.

This exhibition is a part of the Phototrails project, initiated by Hochman, Manovich, and Chow to investigate patterns in social media user-generated photography and video.

The Pavilion of Latvia in the 55th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. Read more on the official project web site. 

Arsenale, Venice, Italy.  June 1 - November 24, 2013.

Artists: Kaspars Podnieks and Krišs Salmanis.

Curators: Alise Tifentale, Anne Barlow, and Courtenay Finn.

Commissioners: Zane Culkstena and Zane Onckule. 

Organizers: Art in General (New York) and Kim? (Riga).

Read more about the exhibition and Latvian contemporary art in my catalog essay "Just What Is It That Makes Latvian Art So Different, So Latvian?"

Read a review of the exhibition by Maija Rudovska published in Studija 91, No. 4 (2013). Download a pdf of the review here.

North by Northeast presents two new works by two Latvian contemporary artists, Kaspars Podnieks and Krišs Salmanis. Both artists address the tension between location and dislocation triggered by the ideological implications of constantly shifting political geography.

References to the traditional Latvian rural lifestyle with its intimate relationship to nature, utmost respect to labor, and patriarchal worldview permeate the exhibition. North by Northeast approaches the self-fashioning of an individual, a community, or even a small nation that is grappling with politicized geography, local artistic heritage, and its work ethic.

Not-for-profit exhibition space for contemporary photography

Contemporary art center Kim?, Riga, Latvia. March 19, 2010 - November 1, 2010.

Archived website: http://fotokvartals.lv/2006-2010/egalerija.html

FK Gallery was the first not-for-profit exhibition space for contemporary photography in Latvia exhibiting new work by Latvian and international artists as well as organizing artist's talks, discussions, and public lectures. FK Gallery was established in cooperation with Contemporary art center kim?.

The letters "FK" stand for Foto Kvartals - photography magazine which I had founded in 2006 and served as its editor-in-chief until December 2010.  This dedicated not-for-profit exhibition space for photography complemented the educational work undertaken by the magazine. Its mission was to provide a forum for Latvian photographers, historians, and theorists.

During eight months in 2010, FK Galerija presented the latest work by the following Latvian photographers: Alnis Stakle, Iveta Vaivode & Aleksander Gronsky, Raimo Lielbriedis, creative group Orbita, Ieva Epnere, and Reinis Hofmanis, as well as a solo show by the US-based photographer Aaron Schuman.

Exhibition of Contemporary Photography from Latvia

Exhibition hall Arsenāls, the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia. August 20 – October 18, 2009.

Artists: Arnis Balcus, Gunars Binde, Zenta Dzividzinska, Roman Korovin, Inta Ruka, Alnis Stakle, Vilnis Vitolins.

An earlier version of this exhibition was shown in contemporary art center Winzavod, Moscow, Russia in 2008.

Read a review of the exhibition: Janis Borgs, "The Private Lives of Latvian Photos," Studija 68, No. 5 (2009). Download a pdf here. 

"– Oh, where I live, – said the Little Prince, – it is not very interesting. – It is all so small. I have three volcanoes. Two volcanoes are active and the other is extinct. But one never knows. – One never knows, – said the geographer. – I have also a flower. – We do not record flowers, – said the geographer. – Why is that? The flower is the most beautiful thing on my planet! – We do not record them, – said the geographer, – because they are ephemeral." (Antoine de Saint–Exupéry. The Little Prince)

The word ephemeral can be used to describe everything we build, collect and construct to last. Taking the Little Prince’s point of view, the illusory sustainability and inviolability of private property can turn out to be as ephemeral as the life of a single rose. What would the Little Prince see if he landed on the planet of property owners in the beginning of the 21st century?

Slightly astonished, he would contemplate the lively hustle. His astonishment would refer to the human situation here and now – appraising each individual’s fragility and smallness, wherein everybody has a wish to confirm and secure his own presence on the planet through things that seem to last eternally. As a remedy against the undefinable Weltschmerz, he would behold houses built and decorated by the inhabitants of the planet, lawns they regularly mow and water, their art collections and libraries, gigabytes of photographic notes they keep in their personal computers, each and every tiny piece of evidence that proves their existence. The Little Prince would be astonished by the beauty that unexpectedly reveals itself in places that busy people living on the planet haven’t even noticed, and by the passion and zeal with which they establish, populate and adorn all corners of the planet with signs marked “Private”. The Little Prince would curiously look into their homes and talk with the owners – just to fit in and understand. Although our artists are living on the same planet of property owners, theirs is the astonished look of the Little Prince – the artists want to fit in and understand as well.

Read more about the artists and their works in the publication which accompanied the exhibition.

Exhibition of Contemporary Photography from Latvia

Contemporary Art Center Winzavod, Moscow, Russia. February 19 – March 15, 2008.

Artists: Arnis Balcus, Gunars Binde, Zenta Dzividzinska, Roman Korovin, Inta Ruka, Alnis Stakle, Vilnis Vitolins.

The exhibition was part of The Seventh International Photography Month in Moscow Photobiennale 2008 and the the festival Season of Latvian Culture in Russia.

Organized by: Latvijas Koncerti, Agency UKSUS, Contemporary Art Center Winzavod, and the Moscow House of Photography.

"– Oh, where I live, – said the Little Prince, – it is not very interesting. – It is all so small. I have three volcanoes. Two volcanoes are active and the other is extinct. But one never knows. – One never knows, – said the geographer. – I have also a flower. – We do not record flowers, – said the geographer. – Why is that? The flower is the most beautiful thing on my planet! – We do not record them, – said the geographer, – because they are ephemeral." (Antoine de Saint–Exupéry. The Little Prince)

The word ephemeral can be used to describe everything we build, collect and construct to last. Taking the Little Prince’s point of view, the illusory sustainability and inviolability of private property can turn out to be as ephemeral as the life of a single rose. What would the Little Prince see if he landed on the planet of property owners in the beginning of the 21st century?

Slightly astonished, he would contemplate the lively hustle. His astonishment would refer to the human situation here and now – appraising each individual’s fragility and smallness, wherein everybody has a wish to confirm and secure his own presence on the planet through things that seem to last eternally. As a remedy against the undefinable Weltschmerz, he would behold houses built and decorated by the inhabitants of the planet, lawns they regularly mow and water, their art collections and libraries, gigabytes of photographic notes they keep in their personal computers, each and every tiny piece of evidence that proves their existence. The Little Prince would be astonished by the beauty that unexpectedly reveals itself in places that busy people living on the planet haven’t even noticed, and by the passion and zeal with which they establish, populate and adorn all corners of the planet with signs marked “Private”. The Little Prince would curiously look into their homes and talk with the owners – just to fit in and understand. Although our artists are living on the same planet of property owners, theirs is the astonished look of the Little Prince – the artists want to fit in and understand as well.

Read more about this exhibition in my introduction to the catalog: “The Little Prince on the Planet of Property Owners.”