Contact Zone Level 2 a screening by Miriam Simun and a Talk with Nora N. Khan @ Onassis ONX

Event Details:

Date: Saturday June 22nd

Time: 5PM-7PM

Location: Onassis ONX

~ Introduction and Perceptual Exercise in Attention-Deconcentration

(a soviet psychological technique to access "un-ideological perception" - designed to counter CIA MK-Ultra LSD spy control project)

~ Screening Contact Zone (Level 2) in 270 degrees

*screening single iteration, 42 minutes

~ Discussion with Nora N. Khan

I play with Nora's words in the soundtrack of the work, so I am very happy she will join us to play with mine! Nora will be fresh off a trip to La Becque (Switzerland) - the mountain featured in the work.

~ Reception to follow

Contact Zone (Level 2)

Infinitely iterating computer-generated animation with original soundtrack, projected live from the world in 270 degrees

Each iteration is 42 minutes, infinite iterations

An infinitely changing computer-generated animation. Two sites of rewilding collide—the Swiss Alps and the artist’s intestines—while an AI monitors them, itching to intervene. The animation is populated by imaged creatures generated by computer models, conjured by text-to-image AI algorithms, and captured by automated camera traps in the forest. It is accompanied by a seven-chapter soundtrack that uses sonic strategies of repetition, interruption, and release in weaving together ecological and mythological histories with philosophies of seeing, knowing, and controlling. The animation unfolds in endless permutations as the algorithm assembles the narrative order; field recordings; location, time and weather; creature actions; and camera views in ever-new variations, enabling fresh meanings to emerge.

CONTACT ZONE (Level II) was made possible with support from the Media Arts Assistance Fund, a regrant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Wave Farm, and Onassis ONX Studio. Contact Zone Level 1 was originally commissioned by ARE YOU FOR REAL, an initiative of Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Giulia Binicurated by Giulia Bini and Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás. Research for the project was supported by Creative Capital and La Becque's Principal Residency Program.

ABOUT THE ARTIST AND THE WRITER:

Miriam Simun is a visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice uses science, somatics, scent, power, poetry and humor to create art works in various formats, for example - video, installation, painting, performance, and communal sensorial experiences. Simun’s work has been presented internationally, including Gropius Bau, New Museum, MIT List Center for Visual Art, Momenta Biennale, New Museum, Himalayas Museum, Rauschenberg Project Space and Bogota Museum of Modern Art. Recognized internationally in publications including the BBC, The New York Times, The New Yorker, CBC, MTV, and Flash Art International, the work has been supported by Creative Capital and the Foundations of Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Gulbenkian and Onassis. Simun holds degrees from the MIT Media Lab (Design Fiction group), NYU's ITP Program, the London School of Economics &Political Science, and is currently an Workspace artist-in-resident at LMCC and a fellow at Onassis Foundation’s ONX Studio

Nora N. Khan is a curator, editor, and writer of criticism on digital visual culture and theory of emerging technologies. She is the Co-Curator of the Biennale de L’Image en Mouvement 2024, A Cosmic Movie Camera, with Andrea Bellini, hosted by Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève. Her books are Seeing, Naming, Knowing (Brooklyn Rail) and with Steven Warwick, Fear Indexing the X-Files (Primary Information). Forthcoming are AI Art and the Stakes for Art Criticism (Lund Humphries) and Kingdom (Primary Information). She has served as editor at Rhizome, Topical Cream, and HOLO, and as professor in Digital + Media at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she was nominated for the John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her writing has been honored by a Critical Writing Grant given through the Visual Arts Foundation and the Crossed Purposes Foundation and a Thoma Foundation Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, and supported by residencies at La Becque and Eyebeam.

ABOUT ONASSIS ONX:

Onassis ONX is a hybrid production and exhibition space with a global community of members who create interactive and immersive XR and AI works. Seeded by cultural leaders Afroditi Panagiotakou, Karen Brooks-Hopkins, and Lisa Phillips, and designed by Karen Wong, the initiative was founded in 2020 in partnership between the Onassis Foundation and New Museum’s NEW INC. It offers advanced production capabilities, advocacy, and a community hub for artists working across a wide range of disciplines. Today, the studio serves a roster of 50 members, and collaborates with five core partners on programming: NEW INC, Rhizome, Pioneer Works, NYU Tandon, and Games 4 Change. Onassis ONX is currently led by NEW INC alumni John Fitzgerald and Matthew Niederhauser, and curator Jazia Hammoudi.

Contact Zone Level 2 a Screening by Miriam Simun and Talk with Nora N. Khan