CMU School of Drama


Thursday, January 20, 2022

In Artist Quayola’s “Transient," The Algorithm Decides

District Fray: We often consider technology a catalyst for performance art, rather than an actor that facilitates expression. With humans standing tête-à-tête with technology, embracing an increasingly emotive relationship between the physical and the digital has led artists to reach unparalleled levels of expression.

2 comments:

Katie Sabel said...

This a really interesting way to think about art. Rather than creating something to be admired once, and perhaps against later after some time has passed, Quayola has created something that is ever-changing. I've heard people talk about theatrical shows like this on occasion- that through an actors' discovery, or else a change in the audience's composition, the show feels "new" every night. However, through the autonomy of the algorithm here, the show seems as though it genuinely will be new every night. All the time, even!

Rather than Quayola making an exhibit that reveals his own artistic ability, it seems that he has created something that sheds new light on artistic ability and the artistic process itself. Granted, I wouldn't be confident in saying that this is the future of art. There is something that the audience craves from art as revealing something human, not just something new. So, while Quayola and other multimedia artists could train and install hundreds more of these exhibitions in the future, I doubt that the demand for them will exceed other means of artistic expression.

Sophia Coscia said...

The cover photo on this article is what captured my interest. I would love to see something like this piece, “Transient”. I am very drawn to the idea of creating fully immersive, audience-oriented pieces. The blend of audio and visual work in this piece is so appealing to me. I think moving forward we will certainly see more museums and galleries move to pieces that interact and encapsulate an audience because as people our attention spans are smaller. I was really struck by the artist Quayola’s statement on technology in art. “Technology is less of a menial artistic aid, but rather a tool used to explore levels of expression that have not yet been reached.” I fundamentally believe that technology if used properly can allow us to better communicate feelings and allow others to fully experience internalized feelings of others and themselves. Technology gives us the ability to visually communicate what we haven’t been able to previously.