Programs

Name: This is Presence: Artists’ Film International — The Institute for New Feeling with Arturo Bandini
Start: 2016-09-23T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2017-02-19T23:59:59-06:00
Location: Marfa, Texas

FilmVisual Art

This is Presence: Artists’ Film International — The Institute for New Feeling with Arturo Bandini

23 Sep 2016 – 19 Feb 2017

Venue

Marfa, Texas

Institute for New Feeling. Installation view of This is Presence, 2016. Courtesy the artists and Ballroom Marfa.

Arturo Bandini. Installation view of Sim City, 2016. Courtesy the artists and Ballroom Marfa. Photo by Alex Marks.

Installation view of Grey Goo Gardens, 2016. Courtesy the artists and Ballroom Marfa. Photo by Alex Marks.

Exhibition

The Institute for New Feeling | Arturo Bandini

This is Presence featured newly-commissioned work from artist collective the Institute for New Feeling (IfNf), including the video nominated by Ballroom for the 2016 season of Artists’ Film International (AFI). AFI is an international collaboration organized by Whitechapel Gallery, London, that showcases emerging artists working in video and animation. The IfNf project was complemented by two micro-exhibitions hosted by Arturo Bandini in Ballroom’s courtyard. These distinct projects both responded to the theme of AFI 2016: technology.

Founded by artists Scott Andrew, Agnes Bolt, and Nina Sarnelle, IfNf describes their collaboration as “a research clinic committed to the development of new ways of feeling, and ways of feeling new.” Their multidisciplinary works and installations borrow from the language of corporate branding, new age healing and traditional medicine, injecting the mystical and uncanny into commercial interfaces.

IfNf’s commissioned video, This is Presence, replicates the endless linking actions of web users as they search for answers on the Internet. The artists’ marshal search engine logic as a sort of modern oracle system while simulating the marketing mechanisms that optimize online presence.

In addition to the film, Ballroom supported the production of Ditherer, a newly commissioned virtual reality experience from the Institute. The piece uses an VR headset to transport users into an infinite warehouse that features an assortment of products for sale and anticipates surreal, near-future shopping. The installation showcased additional videos from IfNf, objects from the Institute’s product line, and the other AFI selections.

In Ballroom’s courtyard, Arturo Bandini hosted two shows-within-the-show, Sim City and Grey Goo Gardens, over the run of AFI 2016. These micro-exhibitions included work from sixteen artists, who played with and off of the exhibition’s technological themes. Sim City (September 23 – December 4, 2016) featured Edgar Bryan, Jason Roberts Dobrin, Michael Dopp, Liz Glynn, Kate Hall, Julian Hoeber, Nevine Mahmoud, and Mungo Thomson; Grey Goo Gardens (December 9, 2016 – February 19, 2017) presented Ed Fornieles, Sonja Gerdes, Joel Holmberg, Dwyer Kilcollin, Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen, Anna Mayer, Thomas Mcdonell, and Isaac Resnikoff.

Video

Artists' Film International

Organized in conjunction with Whitechapel Gallery, London, AFI is a program that showcases international artists working in film, video and animation.

Each international venue that participates in AFI nominates a moving image work from an artist who lives and works in their country. The 2016 AFI artists and institutions are:

Igor Bošnjak selected by the Cultural Centre of Belgrade,

Serbia Fareeha Ghezal selected by the Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan (CCAA), Kabul, Afghanistan

Andrés Denegri selected by Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Eva and Franco Mattes selected by GAMeC (Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea) Bergamo, Italy

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA

Zeyno Pekünlü selected by Istanbul Modern,

Turkey Igor Jesus selected by Museu de Arte,

Arquitetura e Tecnologia (MAAT), Lisbon,

Portugal Mateusz Sadowski selected by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland

Dimitri Venkov selected by the National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Russia

Karin Sander selected by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany

Mak Ying Tung selected by Para/Site, Hong Kong

Rohini Devasher selected by Project 88, Mumbai, India

Tor Jørgen van Eijk selected by Tromsø Kunstforening, Norway

Rachel Maclean selected by Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

Artist Profiles

The Institute for New Feeling

Founded by Scott Andrew, Agnes Bolt, and Nina Sarnelle, The Institute for New Feeling has exhibited at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart; Recess, NY; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; Thank You for Coming, and Eastside International, Los Angeles; Open Engagement Conference, Queens Museum of Art, NY; Spaces, Cleveland; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; and Threewalls, Chicago. IfNf has been featured in Art in America, Huffington Post, Animal NY, Fader, Hyperallergic, ArtFCity, and ArtHopper.

Arturo Bandini

Arturo Bandini is a collaborative project/gallery by artists Michael Dopp and Isaac Resnikoff. The gallery occupies a small building designed by Joakim Dahlqvist that fluidly transposes interior and exterior space, mirroring Bandini’s promiscuous curatorial sensibility. Ballroom hosts an exact copy of the original Bandini building in Los Angeles, manifesting a second gallery in the landscape of Far West Texas.

Installation Images

Acknowledgments

This is Presence is made possible by the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston; City of Marfa; National Endowment for the Arts; Pace Art + Technology; Texas Commission on the Arts; Ballroom Marfa Board of Trustees and Ballroom Marfa Members.

In-kind support provided by Big Bend Brewing Company, Gem & Bolt, and SAVED Wines.

Special thanks to Lalo Baeza, Blum & Poe, Joe Cashiola, Ross Cashiola, Vicente Celis, JD DiFabbio, Heidi Elliot, Matt Emmi, Gil Enciso, David Fenster, Cuca Flores, David Chuan Gao, Julieta Gil, Alicia Gorman, Ben Hernstrom, Ethan Jerrett, Paul Jerrett, Rebecca Knox, Bob Kollar, Zhibin Li, Minerva Lopez, M+B, Alex Marks, Jeff Matheis, Willa McDonald, Brandon Messer, Riley O’Bryan, Karen Pate, Paula Cooper Gallery, Miles Peyton, Daniel Pillis, Simon Pinkas, pochpac, Sam Poulos, Akshara Rai, Francisco Rosas, Gory Smelley, S.E. Smith, Krista Steinhauer, Pattye Stragar, Gary Tyler, Tatiana Vahn, Alex Walker, Molly Walker, Saskia Wilson-Brown, Nico Zevallos, and to our friends at Austin Art Services, the Big Bend Sentinel, the Chinati Foundation, Judd Foundation and Marfa Public Radio.