Mar 7, 2014 | News
All Your Vectors Are Belong To Us – Artist statement
 

All Your Vectors Are Belong To Us - Marius Watz at TM51

Artist statement for All Your Vectors Are Belong To Us, my solo show at TM51 gallery in Oslo, September 2013. Can be downloaded as PDF from Scribd or via the embedded version below.

20131013 Marius Watz – All Your Vectors Are Belong to Us by Marius Watz

 
Dec 11, 2012 | Curating, News
LISA2012: Software Art and the Art Establishment Panel
 

Video is now available of the LISA2012 Software Art and the Art Establishment Panel (Guggenheim, Oct 16, 2012).

The panelists were Amanda McDonald Crowley (curator, formerly Eyebeam), Barbara London (curator, MoMA), Christiane Paul (curator, Whitney) and Marius Watz (artist). Topics included media art history and the role of media art vs. the contemporary art world.

Thanks to Isabel Draves and LISA for organizing the conference and asking me to be on the panel.

 
Sep 26, 2012 | News
Art:21 Blog Interview: Bare Knuckle Reflections about art and commerce from a digital nomad
 

I was interviewed for the Art:21 Guest Blog by Brendan Carroll, touching on the always tricky topic of art and commerce:

Sept 26, 2012: Bare Knuckle Reflections about art and commerce from a digital nomad

BC: When I asked you to participate in this guest blog series, you replied: “As an ex-designer it took me a long time to understand just how fucked up the art economy is, mostly because I was having a hard time letting go of my rational beliefs that surely no one would agree to do skilled work under such conditions. My go-to crass joke about art and money is that at least I’m not a painter. Digital artists may not get much respect from the commercial art world but they have plenty of skills with which to pay the bills.” Your anecdote is funny, and painful, because, in my case, it’s true. In your experience, why do many skilled artists work under such poor conditions?

MW: First off, let me apologize about the painter joke, it sounds offensive out of context. Hell, it sounds offensive even in context, but then that’s the point.

The joke serves two purposes: A: To shock anyone not aware of the difficulties of being an artist. B: To put artists working with digital media (aka media artists aka “my people”) on notice that they shouldn’t feel too sorry for themselves. Digital art might not be respected in the art world proper, but digital artists do enjoy the privilege of being able to feed themselves using the same skills they use to create their art. Perhaps not always without compromise, but you know what they say: A successful artist is any artist who pays her bills.

I also follow up by saying that I didn’t choose what I do. Like most artists, I fell into my practice, an accident of my interests more than conscious speculation. If my obsessions tended towards ceramics I would be a ceramicist, regardless of the relative market realities.

Read the full interview over on Art:21.

 
Jun 12, 2012 | Curating, News
Eyeo 2012 Lecture – A Movement in 3 Parts
 

My presentation for Eyeo 2012, discussing the problem of algorithm cliche, as well as some thoughts on the New Aesthetic. The presentation also featured a section titled “Shock & Awe”, consisting of a slideshow of 853 images of work created between 1994 and 2012, timed to a high-BPM Hardstyle soundtrack lasting 4 minutes and 23 seconds.

Marius Watz – Eyeo 2012

 
Mar 19, 2012 | News
Catalysts at NYCCT
 

CATALYSTS – Case Studies in Computational Techniques
New York City College of Technology
186 Jay St V834 Brooklyn NY 11201

March 24, 2012 9:00 – 5:00
Free and Open to Public

Workshops by:

  • Phil Anzalone, Atelier Architecture 64 & GSAPP
  • Frank Bitonti, FabStudio
  • Mark Collins + Toru Hasegawa, ProxyARCH
  • Zach Downey, PARABOX Labs
  • Erik Verboon, Buro Happold
  • Marius Watz, artist

Moderated By: Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos, Studio Mode[ ] | modeLab
Coordinated by Anne Leonhardt, Sanjive Vaidya, Brian Ringley, Hart Marlow

This event will consist of six one-hour workshops focusing on techniques / case studies that facilitate the implementation of digital concepts into reality. This slam-style event will be conducted by leading practitioners in architectural computation and fabrication.

 
Feb 25, 2012 | News
Mark Making at Mediaruimte, Brussels
 

GX30-iMAL 9127 ArcSurf

Mark Making, solo show at Mediaruimte, Brussels, Feb 29-March 31, 2012

Mark Making is a summary of recent works using mechanical machine processes to explore drawing in physical media (metal, styrene and MDF). Pieces on display include a new Wall Exploder tape drawing, Arc Drawing 1+2 and three CircGrid pieces on anodized aluminum as well as a new series of drawings on MDF titled ArcSurf.

Marius Watz - CircGrid03A 0010

Mark Making is organized in connection with the Generator.x 3.0: Code to Atoms workshop at iMAL. My thanks to Yves Bernard and Lab[au] for making these two events possible.

Extrusion 6311 Arc Drawings

 
Dec 25, 2011 | News
mariuswatz.com is live
 

I’m happy to be able to announce the much-delayed launch of this site, which up to now has been little but a placeholder. The mariuswatz.com domain was registered something in 2005 with the intention of creating an archive of my artistic output, but like the shoemaker’s children the web site of a media artist rarely receives the attention it deserves.

My previous sites unlekker.net and evolutionzone.com will remain online, with the intention of preserving them as-is so that they become time capsules of their respective periods. Buried deep in evolutionzone.com there is even a copy of my oldest portfolio site, which went online in 1996 and features Java applets that still run correctly.

This time capsule strategy might make for some awkward viewing, but at least it’s a truthful archive.