You are here

What I always wanted to tell you but never dared. ESMERALDA KOSMATOPOULOS Solo Show Curated by Clémence Mailly

Country:

Categories:

Date: 
Tuesday, 30 May 2017 to Sunday, 4 June 2017
Opening: 
Wednesday, 31 May 2017 - 6:00pm

 

What I always wanted to tell you

but never dared.

ESMERALDA KOSMATOPOULOS

Curated by Clémence Mailly

 

Parasol Projects: 2 Rivington Street, NY New York 10012

May 30 – June 4 / 11am-6pm

Opening Night: Wednesday, May 31 / 6-9pm

 

Parasol Projects is pleased to present What I always wanted to tell you but never dared., a solo exhibition of the artist Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos. The show curated by Clémence Mailly will present a new body of works composed of mail art, video, neon, and sound pieces, that uses familiar artificial intelligence tools - namely predictive typing - to explore technology as an extension of one’s self.

 

This project started when, while typing a message on her smart phone, the artist accidentally pressed several consecutive times the predictive text bar on the screen. Kosmatopoulos, then noticed that through the mechanical gesture of her hand on the screen, the phone had been composing “by itself” full sentences following a proper grammatical structure subject-verb-object. The repetitive quasi-automatic movement the artist was monotonously performing contrasted with the original writing text that was digitally composed on the screen - a text mediated by the phone’s artificial intelligence. The virtual machine had been learning from the artist’s everyday written communications and was now trying to mimic at its best her writing style, appropriating her most used vocabulary, in an attempt to predict her next words. This parapraxis was shedding light on the complex - man versus machine – dialectic in a somehow disturbing way as the phone had been anticipating the artist’s next words without her consent.

 

Fascinated by this casual though very intrusive manifestation of the machine’s ability to learn, Kosmatopoulos started asking random people met online and offline to perform the same mechanical act. The text obtained would be transcribed onto a letter, signed and then mailed to the artist’s physical address. Every letter framed in the space is the result of this collaborative project between the artist, the participant and its phone, where each of the three actors has a very distinct role: the content of the letter was solely dictated by the predictive function of each given participant’s own smart phone; while the length of the text, format of the letter, choice of paper or pen were left at the discretion of the author of each letter. These messages, mechanically composed by the individual’s stream of consciousness, resemble Surrealist ideas, such as automatic writing or exquisite corpse games in which meaning is thought to emerge from one’s subconscious. 

 

This mail art project is completed by the video ORACLE where Kosmatopoulos separates the mechanical gesture she performed on the phone from the visual content appearing on her screen. The sound piece You put these words in my mouth features the artist appropriating the codes of live poetry readings, and performing with a very emotional voice passages of the text. The exhibition concludes with the neon artwork = TMI that reminds the viewer of the tacit agreement he or she has with the AI software about accessing private information. ​

Press and sales inquiries:

clemence@parasolprojects.com

 

To learn more about the project and participate please check out:

https://vimeo.com/216677868

 

RSVP:

https://goo.gl/JaZ7ea

 

 

 

Artist ( Description ): 

About the artist:

Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist working around language and identity. Born in Greece, raised in Paris, she now lives and works between Paris and New York. Her work investigates the definition and construction of identities, personal memories, culture and collective histories in the post-Internet age. She places herself as a translator, building connections between past and present, physical and virtual and ultimately between one and another. 

 

Her work was exhibited in galleries, institutions and public spaces in North America, Europe and Latin America including Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen, Denmark), Künstlerhaus Wien (Vienna, Austria), AMA | Art Museum of the Americas (DC, USA), Palazzo delle Arti Napoli (Naples, Italy), Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus, Denmark). Working often in-situ, she was invited to several residencies including Kooshk residency (Tehran, Iran), BAR (Beirut, Lebanon) and MASS MOCA studios (North Adams, USA). Kosmatopoulos also worked alongside socially charged entities such as the Organization of American States (United States), the Kayani foundation (Lebanon) and the Museum Louis Braille (France) to create large-scale installations that raise awareness on social issues. 

Telephone: 
917 297 6850
Venue ( Address ): 

Parasol Projects, 2 Rivington St 

Parasol Projects is a pop-up management company founded by art world consultants, made up of architects and artists, organizing temporary exhibitions internationally. Our spaces are available for artists, designers, and creators alike for short-term exhibitions.

Just as a parasol quickly opens & closes, we offer spaces for your short term needs.

We are your one-stop solution to popping-up in New York City. We offer different locations throughout the city, all of which are finished spaces, ready for you to pop-up. Whether you are a curator looking for a gallery space to host your next exhibition, an artist with a portfolio you are dying to show, an emerging fashion label trying to showcase your next line, or a furniture designer ready to make the world a more thoughtfully comfortable place, we commit ourselves to realizing your work and ensuring everything runs smoothly.

Other events from

view
What I always wanted to tell you but never dared. ESMERALDA KOSMATOPOULOS Solo Show Curated by Clémence Mailly
05/30/2017 to 06/04/2017

 

Related Shows This Week

view
Debbi Kenote and Mark Sengbusch: Cross Cut
03/08/2024 to 04/20/2024
view
CONTROL GALLERY PRESENTS CHEAP THRILLS & TONS OF SMOKE FOR MAXIMUM JOY: AN EXHIBITION OF WORKS FROM GUILLAUME OLLIVIER
03/01/2024 to 04/13/2024
view
Tomas Watson: Transitions
03/06/2024 to 04/13/2024
view
Miracle Island - Paintings by KK Kozik
03/30/2024 to 05/12/2024
view
Art Share L.A. Open Studios - Ellsworth Artist Residency Program
03/30/2024
view
LORI COZEN-GELLER ||| THE HUMAN CONDITION
10/18/2023 to 12/16/2024
view
GODDESSES, AMAZONS, and MOTHERS | A Celebration of Female Creativity | Group Exhibition
03/08/2024 to 04/12/2024
view
Artists on the Bowery Part 5: Berthot, Diao, Hammond, Nevelson, Quaytman, Yamaoka
03/14/2024 to 05/11/2024

Pages