Publishing, distribution, dissemination; the sharing of ideas, filter bubbles that then isolate us from each other again, the speeds of data we receive warping our time and attention, have become so very everyday.

The “locust swarms of lettering” described by Walter Benjamin almost a century ago, as writing was “ruthlessly dragged out into the street by advertisements and subjected to the brutal heteronomies of economic chaos” was prescient of the maze of digital code we now inhabit, but for all intents and purposes, means that we can just type a lot better than our parents.

A significant shift has occurred though, in that the map has become the territory.

Whereas the previous model of the map involved representation of what was out there, for us to use for our own devices (albeit drawn for someone else's), we are now intrinsically a part of this via the data that we daily inscribe within the map itself.

Whether it's the unprecedented amount of information the vast database the internet provides, or the algorithms; the 'filters' that drive it, increasingly personalising our experience, or the materiality of digital data and its supporting frameworks, we co-evolve with the technology we produce, both in the short and long term.

The works selected here go some way to exploring the heavily mediated air of the present day and how these might impact on ideas of art and artistic production.

Notes on the Dumb Terminal. 2012. New work for Banner Repeater by Benedict Drew.
On-line html essay, also manifest in the project space for the duration of the exhibition. Fourth in the 'notes' series.

Looking through the looking glass for clues about the looking glass, Benedict Drew extracts the reality from behind the phosphorous glow of the screen, the servers, the hard drives, the computers, the projectors, the rare earth metals that these contain, and the enormous energy consumption of the servers required to fuel the vast database that is the internet.

Beauty and the Beast, 2010. Tim Head.
Real time computer program on LCD screen.

The work focuses on the digital medium’s elusive material substance and on our evolving relationship to it as a physical entity. It uses the medium’s physical characteristics that make it uniquely different from other media. Bypassing its usual role of representing images and texts, the work deals directly with its basic material elements - the luminous fabric of pixels on screen and the hidden real time calculations of the computer operating at ultra fast speeds that drive these elements. The medium’s underlying material substance is exposed, moving it out from its usual confinement in virtual space towards the same physical space that we ourselves occupy.

Edition of 1. Christopher Rawcliffe.
On-line programme at www.editionof1.org, which will be running in the reading room for the duration of the exhibition, where we will print artworks for people to take away for free.

HOW TO MAKE ART WITHOUT AN ARTIST
Edition of 1 is a web based project.
A single edition artwork for you to have.
A randomly appropriated image from the Internet.
No two images are ever the same.
Each image is digitally signed and dated.
No money is involved.
Edition of 1 can be printed at home or at work.
You may print more than one artwork.
The artist has no control over what image becomes his artwork.

The work inadvertently reflects whatever is current at any given time, giving a visual cross-section of the internet. It distorts the use of the search engine normally utilised to produce results plucked from this vast database. The random appropriated images imply there is no hierarchy of the image here, whilst also undermining values of art-production by questioning the role of the artist.

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Nesting somewhere in the middle of the exhibition, is an episodic group event, which will display a different digital video loop every day for 14 days, curated by Majed Aslam and Fay Nicolson:

RE-RUN. 6th March - 21st March. "An invitation and the limit of the loop."
Actress, Ayshay, Majed Aslam, Nathan Barlex, David Blandy, Ami Clarke, Jess Flood-Paddock, Dean Kissick, Gil Leung, Chooc Ly Tan, Fay Nicolson, Damien Roach, Oliver Smith, Jesse Wine.

A different work will be shown each day on a 24hr loop, culminating in a series, an episodic event exploring the technical novelty of the loop and its potential to unravel temporal structure. RE-RUN will take place at Banner Repeater and simultaneously online at www.re-run.net.
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