Automatic Update June 27–September 3, 2007 The Museum of Modern Art, New York www.moma.org publishes an accompanying Web site, www.moma.org/automaticupdate, in a retro 1990s design with interviews with some of the artists.
fig.: Xu Bing, Chinese, born 1955, Chongqing. Book from the Ground. (2007, work in progress). Courtesy of the artist. © 2007 Xu Bing

With computers, LCD screens, DVD players, digital video, and user-activated components, contemporary artists show a range of newly invented art forms and comment at the same time the modern-day information age. Curator Barbara London says, “The wildness of the dot-com era infused media art with a heady energy. Automatic Update is about the vision of art drawn from technology of the last decade. The show features the work of hackers, programmers, and tinkerer-revisionists from North America, Europe, and Asia.”

Xu Bing (Chinese, b. 1955, since 1990 living in New York) is one of the artists. He questions language and demonstrates how meaning and the written word can easily be manipulated. In his work the universal language of icons provide information without words, antidotes to misunderstanding in the enveloping sphere of world languages in the global electronic network. The word refers more commonly to company logos and the thumbnail images on computer screens that are clicked to activate an application. more culture >>>