Joseph Desler Costa “Extreme Learning Machine”
Foley Gallery
[Image: Joseph Desler Costa "Forty Five Forty Fives" (2015) dye sublimation print 40 x 30in.]
This event has ended.
Foley Gallery presents Joseph Desler Costa’s first solo exhibition, Extreme Learning Machine, a series of photographs and videos.
The title of the show, Extreme Learning Machine, draws inspiration from learning devices designed to replicate artificial learning techniques and biological learning mechanisms. Based on algorithms of human nervous systems, ELM has infinite learning capacity and captures the intuitive efficiency of brain learning.
Recent works physically mimic this digital and retouched reality by using in-camera techniques, cut paper and studio constructions rather than the modern tools of Photoshop. The analog reconstruction as proxy to the real world reflects a condition in which identity, space and desire are fluid from one moment to the next, and where everything one wants is available, at any moment, forever. Costa uses masculine signifiers and standardized articles such as motorcycle helmets, cars, and soccer gloves in order to symbolize their protection from reality. Objects, symbols and logos of mass production and consumption become vehicles for transcendence, as they are re-contextualized.
Costa’s practice is very much a processed-based labor. Works absorb, mimic and inevitably humanize the visual language made possible by machine and imaging software. Compositions attempt to recreate the texture of a reality that has widened and opened via our ever-present screens and devices - a reality where the digitally constructed and altered image imposes itself on our notions and understandings of space, place, intimacy and self. Temporal experience now unfolds in a state of constant flux, shifting between a physical reality, and the seduction and distraction of the more desirable illusions and versions constantly presented, fabricated and delivered through our screens.
Joseph Desler Costa lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Florence, Italy. He is a photographer living in Brooklyn, NY and Florence, Italy. He holds degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder (BA) as well as ICP Bard College (MFA), and attended the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba. Costa has exhibited his pictures and films at venues including Baxter St. Camera Club of New York, Arsenale di Venezia, Newspace Center for Photography and Mana Contemporary. He has recently had solo exhibitions at the International Center of Photography and BDP Project Space (Jersey City). Costa’s work will also be featured in the upcoming 2015 Lianzhou Foto Festival this autumn in China.
Media
Schedule
from October 21, 2015 to November 28, 2015
Opening Reception on 2015-10-21 from 18:00 to 20:00