Decode at the V&A
I’ve always been slightly suspicious of the quality of curating at the V&A. I think I’ve only been to a couple of exhibitions which I felt had been well presented. Decode was in fact well put together though I had a mixed reaction to the pieces. Some were aesthetically pleasing but a bit too worthy in their intent; I don’t know how many more artworks I want to see that try to capture all the binary data out there and represent it in a visual monologue. It’s a personal thing but I’m wondering “Why is that interesting/relevant to me?”. As a web developer I’m aware of the existence of unfathomable amounts of data transmissions there are out there but I don’t want to ponder on how much there could be anymore than I already do.
- chris appears before our eyes
However, Aaron Koblin’s Flight Pattern and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Make-Out were both informative, mesmerising and hypnotic. This is the sort of data representation, either to map North American flight patterns or a count of the number of internet videos of people kissing and the gender ratio. Both these pieces were quite beautiful.
The work that really caught my attention were those pieces that demanded my physical interaction, like Yoke’s Dandelion or Ross Phillips’ Videogrid in which I shamelessly gurned and played. I felt like a kid on my first visit to the science museum. I wish an everyday mundane trip to the supermarket or a bus ride could involve some sort of fun informative engagement like these.
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