Curatorial S T A T E M E N T
						
				        Kathleen Chmelewski
				        Nan Goggin
				        Joseph Squier 

					
					
				Art as Signal: Parts of the Loop
				
					
				In February of 1993, ad319 was born from the 
				simultaneous efforts of three artists trained 
				in traditional mediums, all of whom were 
				attempting to embrace new digital technologies. 
				The idea of working as a collective seemed an 
				effective way to pool our knowledge, and an 
				efficient means of addressing the issues we 
				face as contemporary artists and educators. One 
				outgrowth of this collaborative approach has 
				been Art as Signal: Inside the Loop, an 
				international exhibition of electronic art we 
				are in the process of curating for the Krannert 
				Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana
				-Champaign.


				The impetus behind this exhibition has been our 
				belief that we are now entering a "second 
				generation" of computer art. This new generation 
				is characterized by artwork that is more mature 
				and authoritative than that which preceded it. 
				Unhindered by indirect access, cost, or computer 
				languages too dense for the lay-person, "second 
				generation" computer artists are pushing beyond 
				the limits of their predecessors. They are in-
				vesting their work with a range of content 
				unrelated to the process of its' own creation.


				Much has changed since computer technology be-
				came available as a creative tool thirty years 
				ago. Often the content of first generation 
				computer art was characterized by a self-reflex-
				ive analysis of the process itself. Expensive 
				equipment, obscure computer languages, and 
				unfriendly interfaces all served to limit the 
				user group to a technocratic few. 
				
				But personal computers have re-configured the 
				user group. New software, along with more 
				affordable and more powerful hardware, have 
				allowed the individual artist access to experi-
				ment with techniques and multi-media forms that 
				in the past would have required outside support. 
				Development in software design has engendered 
				interfaces that are more friendly and transpar-
				ent. These combined features have created a 
				tool that allows artists to get serious. 
				
				The work in this exhibition is presented as 
				exemplary of this evolution. 

				One could compare the development of a vocab-
				ulary in the digital arts with the universal 
				acquisition of language. First one learns the 
				alphabet, then words, then sentences. Finally, 
				one can utter poetry, or prose, or anything in 
				between. The images that follow are significant 
				for their poetic resonance, not for the fact 
				that they were made with a computer.

				Rooms full of terror from a child's perspective,
				models of cyber-organic entities never before 
				encountered that remark on the future of bio-
				technology, mediated narratives, modern myth-
				ology, and reconstruction of personal histories. 
				These images set out to do what artists through 
				the ages have always done, namely to give expres-
				sion and coherence to the human issues of the day.
				
				
				
			
				 E X H I B I T I O N 

				 G A L L E R Y  entrance