Wave: 512 & 512,000 Polygons, ballpoint pen, mylar, nails, 2016
Download Image: Web
Lycoming College will present the artwork of Daniel Smith in the Digital Media Gallery from Feb. 9 through March 20. The public is welcome to attend a free opening day reception on Feb. 9 from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the gallery, which is in the Communication Building on Basin Street.
Smith will give an artist’s lecture, also free and open to the public, in the Digital Media Lab in the Communication building on campus from 9:30 to 11 a.m. on Feb. 9.
Smith’s exhibit, titled “Of Things Which Do Not Appear,” explores the constant pull of two worlds: the physical and the abstract. His exhibit is influenced by Raphael’s painting, “School of Athens.” The painting shows Plato, who believed that abstract ideas precede everything seen in the material world, next to Aristotle, who believed the physical world supersedes ideals. Bringing this ancient dichotomy into the modern world, he explores how technology, like mass production and computers, reduces physical objects to abstractions.
“We are active sheep, constructing our own experience of the world from the screens we see through,” said Smith, who is based in Cambridge, Mass. “We shape the shadows of the world on a computer monitor. These shadows in turn shape the world around us, from the design of a bicycle tire, to the people we know, the economies in which we live, and the houses in which we will die.”
His works include video and graphic art along with more traditional pieces done in pen and ink.
People who wish to view the exhibit after opening day should contact Jeremiah Johnson, the gallery curator, at johnsonj@lycoming.edu or Leah Peterson, the gallery director, at peterson@lycoming.edu.
Smith’s artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Carnegie Arts Center in Cincinnati, the CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, the Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletronica in São Paulo, Brazil, the Athens Digital Arts Festival in Athens, Greece. His research has been funded by Boston Cyberarts, Ideas for Creative Exploration, The University of Georgia and Indiana University.