MICHAEL BELL-SMITH ARTIST TALK + SCREENING In his first artist talk in New York City, Michael Bell-Smith will speak at EAI about his innovative media works and digital art practice. Wednesday, February 6, 2008 6:30 pm Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10011 www.eai.org Admission free ___________________________________ Michael Bell-Smith uses digital forms to explore contemporary visual culture and how it is mediated through popular technologies. Remixing and reinterpreting images appropriated from video games, the Internet, and other digital sources, Bell-Smith composites and reworks these elements to reconsider their cultural meaning. Directly referencing art historical and painting traditions as well as the visual vocabulary of the Internet, Bell-Smith's rigorously constructed, highly conceptual works suggest new directions and possibilities in digital art. In his single-channel video and Internet works, Bell-Smith often focuses on conceptually driven reedits and remixes of appropriated video or film material. Drawing structural inspiration from music remixes, Bell-Smith often deploys strategies derived from fan edits and the aesthetics of common computer programs. Using sources ranging from industrial videos and popular music clips to classic cinema and contemporary art, he interrogates the cultural meaning of these materials in a "post-personal computer, post-Internet, post-Google" age. In his screen-based gallery works, Bell-Smith combines hand-crafted digital drawings with disparate elements collected from low-resolution video games, animated gifs and other digital sources, crafting evocative digital animations that play with the notion of the sublime. The resulting dynamic landscapes and captured actions tease the viewer with the promise of a narrative; alluring visuals are poised between motion and stasis, representation and abstraction. In his presentation at EAI, Bell-Smith will speak about the role of the Internet in his practice and his work's relationship to "net folk art." He will also screen new and recent works. Ranging from screen-based works intended for the gallery to videos made for theatrical screenings and digital art created for an Internet audience, these works also draw attention to Bell-Smith's interest in modes of contemporary image production and distribution. Michael Bell-Smith was born in 1978 in East Corinth, Maine. He received a BA in Semiotics from Brown University in 2001. His works have been seen in exhibitions at venues including The New Museum, New York (2008), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2008); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2007); LISTE, Basel, Switzerland (2007); Galeri F15, Moss, Norway (2007); Threshold Artspace, Perth, Scotland (2007); The Museum of Fine Arts,Lausanne, Switzerland (2006); Vilma Gold, London (2006); Foxy Production, New York (2006); BankART, Yokohama, Japan (2006); Glassbox, Paris (2006); PROJEKT 0047, Berlin (2005); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK (2005). Organized by Josh Kline. ___________________________________ Through February 16, 2008, Bell-Smith's work can be seen in a solo exhibition, Bouncing Lights Forever, at Foxy Production in New York: 617 West 27th St., ground floor. foxyproduction.com ___________________________________ About EAI Founded in 1971, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is one of the world's leading nonprofit resources for video art and interactive media. EAI's core program is the international distribution of a major collection of new and historical media works by artists. EAI's activities include a preservation program, viewing access, educational services, online resources, and public programs such as exhibitions and lectures. The Online Catalogue provides a comprehensive resource on the 175 artists and 3,000 works in the EAI collection, including extensive research materials. www.eai.org Please visit EAI's new project, The Online Resource Guide for Exhibiting, Collecting & Preserving Media Art, a comprehensive source for information on single-channel video, computer-based art, and media installation: http://resourceguide.eai.org Electronic Arts Intermix 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10011 (212) 337-0680 tel (212) 337-0679 fax info@eai.org ___________________________________ This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs