Day: June 25, 2008

The exhibition BITMAP: As Good As New, which originally ran at vertexList gallery in New York, travels to Philadelphia with a reception tomorrow, June 26. Details. The Leonard Perlstein Gallery at Drexel University hosts a screening of the movie 8 BIT at 4 pm, before the opening.

The 8 BIT scene has its own versions 1.0 and 2.0. (That versioning makes people mad so let's keep using it.) Version 1 is people opening game cartridges and reprogramming them to make art and music. Version 2 is people using default tools such as MSPaint to make pixel art and animations and posting them on blogs. The show contains both, but unlike the acrimonious discussions on the Rhizome.org discussion boards you don't often hear sentiments such as this expressed:

I think what may have upset some of the more process oriented artists who see computer language knowledge as a key to expression was being told they were an older version of something they really had no desire to be a part of.

Instead, the exhibition is one big happy family:

Cory Arcangel, Lee Arnold, Chris Ashley, Mike Beradino, Mauro Ceolin, Petra Cortright, Paul Davis, DELAWARE, Notendo (Jeff Donaldson), Eteam, Dragan Espenschied, Christine Gedeon, Kimberley Hart, Daniel Iglesia, JODI, Olia Lialina, LoVid, Kristin Lucas, David Mauro, Jillian Mcdonald, Tom Moody, Aron Namenwirth, Mark Napier, Nullsleep, Marisa Olson, Will Papenheimer, Prize Budget for Boys, jimpunk, Akiko Sakaizumi, Paul Slocum, Eddo Stern and CJ Yeh.

However, if Version 2 received institutional sanction this harmony would instantly collapse.