From the malevolent mainframe of 2001’s “Hal” to the proliferation of remote-controlled, drone-delivered destruction, dystopian visions of technology exist in abundance. Even contemporary artists who work with technology, like Cory Arcangel and Wade Guyton, tend to focus on its glitches and limitations. By contrast, the Box’s dazzling exhibition of computer-animated films by Stan VanDerBeek offers a hopeful perspective on the promise of technology, one that[…..]

You walk in to a darkish room where ever-changing shapes move like a school of fish across the walls. After your eyes adjust, you find that the there are two benches sitting among six sculptures that are producing the schools of fish and that the fish are made out of nothing but light beams. These sculptures are metal. Simple geometry (sphere, cube, etc). The room[…..]

I’m reluctant to quote from Emerson’s Quotation and Originality, but it really does add to a conversation about the Stan VanDerBeek exhibition at MIT. While Emerson is obsessed with verbal communication and upholding the cannon as a garden that we can “honestly” borrowed from, The Culture Intercom actively fights the idea that “all minds quote” and “the originals are not original.” VanDerBeek’s career was filled[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley Making films is not easy. Most people know this and almost as many find the difficulties of movie-making enthralling, which explains the proliferation of articles, TV interviews, and radio specials on the subject. Just last week, I nearly pulled off the freeway to better concentrate on radio host Elvis Mitchell’s interview with Oren[…..]