the file exhibition had some nice pieces. i would link to them, but the file website is impenetrable (in marked contrast to their amazing catalogue, to follow…).
my favourite was a simple sound installation executed flawlessly. as you walked down a sterile glass corridor, you triggered a sonic world crossing the border at tijuana via a jumble of perspex stalks hanging in your way with slightly/suitably sinister looking sensors at their tips.
› nina waisman; with pd programming by marius schebella / between bodies (tijuana) / united states
pictured is something that had a little trick that transformed the whole thing. you trigger a game of life simulation spreading across the whole table by waving your hand over some part of it, which the artist’s statement elaborates on. but the magic was the oh-so-very-digital lights were sitting atop electro-mechanical relays, which give a really satisfying click as they turn the turn the led on or off, which imbued the ‘life’ in the installation a visceral, swarming, physicality.
› leo nuñez / game of life /argentina
i was also happy to finally see the mechanical recreation of arcade game world of mario in the flesh. the idea is nicer than the reality, but that doesn’t stop there be real wonder in pressing the NES game pad and seeing and hearing a meccano-like contraption scissor mario in the air, rather than it just happening as pixels on a screen.
› keith lam / moving mario / china
finally, as d-fuse, we stopped in our tracks when we saw a triple-head montage of an abstracted city passing by: not a million miles away from a description of particle. good that it was a) really well done and b) exploring a completely different, almost brutal, aesthetic.
› marina chernikova / urban surfing moscow / netherland