James Hoff: B=R=I=C=K=I=N=G, 2015; installation view, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. Image © Traviesa Studio.

Bricking is a term that describes the overload of an operating system when infected by malware, a process that renders the system useless, or at least unable to work for its original purpose. Hoff infects JPEGs, PNGs, and TIFFs with specific forms of malware such as Skywiper and Stuxnet—viruses that have become synonymous with international cyberterrorism[1]—and then digitally converts them into image files that can be transferred to canvas or aluminum. The political weight of these viruses rubs against the formally expressive character of the final works, which seem to engage more with the history of abstraction and the cool, detached vocabulary of formalism than the language of computer code. Thin, horizontal striations of vibrant neon colors seem to liquefy and drip, creating an unusual grainy texture across the surface of the aluminum paintings, whose markings bear a kinship to rough textiles such as coarse, unprimed canvas. The cosmic forms, pulsating colors, and abrupt shifts in tone call up the rich history of pure abstraction, from the cosmic utopian canvases of Wassily Kandinsky to the colored depth of a Mark Rothko.

James Hoff. Skywiper No. 50, 2015; Chromaluxe transfer on aluminum; 60 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, New York.

Despite the hostile process that Hoff uses to compose these works, each painting seems to domesticate the digital attack within the bounds of the frame, turning Hoff’s disruptive gestures into something lyrical. Skywiper No. 50 (2015) is a bacterial force field of battered digital saturations, where mysterious forms seem to bleed into each other, recalling biological arrangements or CGI environments. And yet these works stop short of creating the emotional pitch that abstract art seems to still depend on. The soft pastel colors and delicate fragility of line in a work like Skywiper No. 57 (2015) seem to run uncomfortably close to abstract kitsch, asking viewers to regard the difficult question that surrounds abstract painting today: Has it become a placeholder (or stock image) for pure presence, instead of a politically charged genre that worked to resist materialism? One is left with a disconcerting feeling that Hoff’s paintings are efforts to visualize the mundane, banal, and detached forms of political investment the West seems to depend upon as bombs from unmanned aerial vehicles continue to fall across the world.

James Hoff. Skywiper No. 57, 2015; Chromaluxe transfer on aluminum; 30 x 24 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, New York.

An installation of Hoff’s sound work electrifies the gallery and expands Hoff’s serial corruptions in painting to another sensory mode, drawing the visitor’s attention to the relationships between the visual, the spatial, and the auditory. The lazy echoes and deep thumping cuts warm the environment for the works and the listener, as the sounds resounding through the gallery recall the empty, repetitive lulls of easy listening music or the earworms attributed to pop or house dance beats. Gently wooed by the audible materializations of these invasive mutations, one might leave the gallery disturbed and estranged from the works on display, pondering the dazzling efficiency of our digitally resplendent 21st-century society.

James Hoff: B=R=I=C=K=I=N=G is on view at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans through February 28, 2016.

[1] These malicious computer viruses are self-destructing worms believed to be jointly built by the American and Israeli governments in order to carry out undetectable attacks against Middle Eastern countries, and in particular Iran’s nuclear program by compromising Iranian nuclear centrifuges and other industrial electromechanical systems to shut down nuclear facilities and conduct espionage from 2005 to 2010. While there are many sources that prove Stuxnet to be the cause of the many breakdowns across Iran’s major nuclear facilities, security expert Bruce Schneier’s “Another Piece of the Stuxnet Puzzle,” published on February 23, 2012, is the most comprehensive. The article can be accessed at https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html. The Guardian reports that Stuxnet was used as early as President George W. Bush’s second term under the administration of security company Symantec. See Charles Arthur’s “Symantex Discovers 2005 U.S. Computer Virus Attack on Iran nuclear plants,” published online February 23, 2013. Accessed at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/26/symantec-us-computer-virus-iran-nuclear. A report by Reuters has alleged that the NSA launched Stuxnet to sabotage North Korea’s nuclear program in tandem with the targeted Iranian centrifuges. See Joseph Menn’s “Exclusive: U.S. Tried Stuxnet-Style Campaign Against North Korea But Failed—Sources,” Reuters, May 29, 2015. Accessed at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northkorea-stuxnet-idUSKBN0OE2DM20150529.

Jonas Holmer. Endless Rainbows, 2012 (video still); looping video installation. Courtesy of the Artist.

Holmer has an eye for creating illusions of depth. Endless Rainbows (2012) is one example of how the artist utilizes graphic and installation techniques aimed at engaging viewers in an immersive sensory experience. In one iteration, the looping video was installed in a small room with a sloping ceiling. To enter, visitors had to crawl through an entrance a little more than three feet high, and sit in a space illuminated only by the spiraling rainbow before their eyes. The recurring circular motion and reverberating sound create an entrancing atmosphere, drawing viewers into a space of contemplation.

Jonas Holmer. LOVE, 2013 (video still); video animation with sound; 5:55. Courtesy of the Artist.

Holmer’s occupation as a programmer informs his practice as an artist. Evident in works such as LOVE (2013), many of Holmer’s videos are digital manipulations of simple imagery repeated endlessly to create a kaleidoscopic effect. In LOVE, the artist uses one second of footage (24 frames) from an old Tom & Jerry cartoon as input for a program he developed specifically for his art practice. The program operates on a generative system that repeats and mutates the visual elements until the initial input is unrecognizable. The result is an amalgamation of abstract forms and shapes combined with a hybrid of mechanical and natural sounds. LOVE was commissioned for an animation festival in Fredrikstad, Norway, and the film was projected onto various buildings in the city.

Jonas Holmer. LOVE, 2013 (study); video animation with sound; 5:55. Courtesy of the Artist.

On the challenges of using the tools of computer programming in his production process, Holmer speaks of the overriding tendency to think as a programmer even when acting as an artist. Describing programming as a “complex process burdened with constraints,” the artist is conscious of the limitations (such as flatness and lack of tactility) that come with using the computer as a primary medium for production. Holmer chooses to view these restrictions in a positive light, a way of pushing the boundaries of what can and cannot be done with computing. In Almost There (2014), Holmer uses hand-drawn feathers as the single input for his program, then duplicates and rearranges them in endless hypnotic formations using a video-editing program to the backdrop of a pensive rumble.

Jonas Holmer. Almost There, 2014 (video still); video animation with sound; 10:20. Courtesy of the Artist.

One thread that connects Holmer’s work is his curiosity for systems and frameworks. In Self-Harnessing Harness (2015), the artist reveals this knack in its most tactile form. A sound installation consisting of myriad musical instruments, a fan, and clippings of Holmer’s voice, the work is an experiment in simple methods of creating sound. The different components in this piece act independently, yet are all connected to each other through a series of wires and placements. This seemingly haphazard assembly delivers a symphony that gradually changes in rhythm according to the subtle fluctuations in the arrangement’s various components. Holmer, while having actively selected and composed the parts of this installation, also intended for the piece to take a life of its own. Its odds and ends—held together by a thread, or in this case, a wire—collectively perform a composition that the artist could not have entirely planned. For Holmer, whether in creating art, music, or computer programs, true stimulation lies in the engineering of processes rather than the manufacturing of products.

Jonas Holmer. Self-Harnessing Harness, 2015 (installation shot); violin, drums, motors, mp3 player shuffling clips of the artist’s voice, oscillating fan, mics, guitar pedals, mixer, speakers. Courtesy of the Artist.

Jonas Holmer is an artist, musician, and software developer. He is currently finishing his MFA at Konstfack, Stockholm (University College of Arts, Crafts and Design). His main output in the last years has been in the form of animations, sound art, tapes, computer games, and installations.

Stan VanDerBeek: Poemfield at The Box, Los Angeles; installation view. Courtesy of the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek and the Box, L.A. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.

On view are five of the eight films that compose VanDerBeek’s Poemfield series, created between 1966 and 1971. They combine poetic texts and abstract graphics designed with an early computer language. Words emerge from a glittering mosaic of colored pixels, and then fade back into the blinking, swirling digital ground. With the exception of Poemfield No. 5 (1968), which uses footage of skydivers, all of the films represent purely computer-generated landscapes. The graphics transform and flicker at a frenetic pace while the poems slowly unfold over about five minutes. The visuals entrance and draw viewers in, but it is the enigmatic texts that hold the attention. VanDerBeek likened his films to illuminated manuscripts, wherein gilt illustrations would entice the reader to focus on the word.

The artist made these films at Bell Labs in collaboration with engineer Ken Knowlton, through Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), an organization founded in part by Robert Rauschenberg. Knowlton had developed BEFLIX, perhaps the earliest computer animation language, which they used to write the scripts for the Poemfield films. These scripts were then run through a computer and channeled into a cathode-ray tube output that was filmed. Artists Bob Brown and Frank Olvey added color. The Box has transferred the original 16mm films to video and restored Poemfield No. 1 (1967) in HD; the difference is striking. The other films jump and stutter with wobbly focus, so that making out the words is a challenge, but the HD version is clear and sharp. This is especially true in a two-tone variant, Poemfield No. 1 (Blue Version), which strips away the color so that the original programming is highlighted. Restorations of the rest of the Poemfield series are hopefully underway.

Stan VanDerBeek: Poemfield at the Box, Los Angeles; installation view. Courtesy of the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek and the Box, L.A. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.

VanDerBeek viewed technology as a source of potential liberation and empowerment, not alienation. This was true for the creation of art as well as for its ability to reach a wide audience. “What spellbinds me as an idea is that I’ll be able to sit someplace in a railroad station and write a movie, or maybe even pick up a telephone eventually and write a movie,” he said in the 1968 film Incredible Machine. He saw the ubiquity of television as an ideal vehicle for the dissemination of artwork. “If the world of the future is a world of ephemeral TV programs and houses which we change as often as we change cars, it may be a world which calls for an art as ephemeral as much of the music which eighteenth-century composers provided for social occasions. Art is more than eternal masterpieces,” he wrote in a 1969 document included in the exhibition catalog.

On the cover of the catalog are images of the punch cards VanDerBeek used to program his films, all numbers and raw data. They resemble the punch cards in Errol Morris’ film The Fog of War, cards that Robert McNamara employs in his coolly efficient planning of the Vietnam War. Technology is not inherently good or bad, but it has the potential to be used for vastly different ends. VanDerBeek realized this dichotomy, noting that his work offered “a possible way to replace ‘war’ games with ‘peace’ games.” The most lucid example of this is Poemfield No. 7 (1967-8), which reproduces the poem “There is no way to Peace – Peace is the way” by anti-war activist A.J. Muste. The most serene film in the show, the poem’s words unfold across a cruciform mandala that recalls multiple spiritual sources.

Stan VanDerBeek: Poemfield at the Box, Los Angeles; installation view. Courtesy of the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek and the Box, L.A. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.

The one drawback of the show is the works’ sonic environment. VanDerBeek used notable musicians like John Cage and Paul Motian to create soundtracks for each film, but the sounds are not isolated, and in the Box’s cavernous main space they play over each other in a sea of aural cacophony. In adjoining galleries, other films are played on monitors that have headphones, making it all the more apparent how important the unique soundtrack is to each work.

Despite this limitation, the exhibition is a welcome restoration of a digital pioneer whose work bridged high art, progressive ideals, and technology. Instead of encouraging isolation, VanDerBeek saw the computer and the cinema as tools to connect people and enable communication. As he writes in an article on “Disposable Art” (also included in the catalogue), “I believe that motion pictures and related image-thinking holds out a hope for ‘seeing’ ourselves and thus to evolve the ecology most suitable for life, for living…can you see me! can you hear me!”

Stan VanDerBeek: Poemfield is on view at the Box in Los Angeles through November 1, 2014.