Tyler Coburn “Remote Viewer”
Koenig & Clinton
[Image: Drawings from Upton Sinclair's Mental Radio: Studies in Consciousness, 1930.]
This event has ended.
Koenig & Clinton presents its first solo exhibition of works by Tyler Coburn. The exhibition is comprised of a single-channel digital animation, a text, and an object designed in collaboration with architects Bureau V.
In 1969, conceptual artist Douglas Huebler teased the limits of photography when he announced his impossible desire to “photographically document the existence of everyone alive.” In October of that same year, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) made its first host-to-host connection between labs at U.C.L.A. and Stanford University. Ten years earlier, with help from the U.S. Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency launched the CORONA project for the purpose of gathering Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) through photographic satellite reconnaissance.
Seen from our era of Big Data, machine learning, biometrics, and asymmetrical warfare, Huebler’s deadpan proclamation seems less quixotic than prognostic. After all, the ability to document the existence of every living person is far more plausible when the mechanisms of state and corporate surveillance are abetted by the intimacies of ‘selfie’ surveillance, in which unwitting users yield personal information through quotidian digital interfaces.
Eyes that traverse time zones in image feeds belong to bodies that can be geolocated through the very phones that host the feeds. Despite our attempts to transcend corporeality, we are ever more subject to both immaterial and material capture.
Are we viewing remotely, or are we being remotely viewed? Who is transmitting, and who is receiving? And how might the histories of remote viewing, automatism, and psychic scientisim inform how we’ve arrived at this moment?
Tyler Coburn received a BA in Comparative Literature from Yale University and an MFA from the University of Southern California. He served as a fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program from 2014-2015. Coburn has presented installations, performances, and lectures internationally at: Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Kunsthalle Wien; Kunstverein Munich; Hayward Gallery, London; South London Gallery, Para Site, Hong Kong; and Art Sonje Center, Seoul. Coburn participated in the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016) and 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014). In 2018, he will participate in the 17th Tallinn Print Triennial and realize exhibitions and projects with Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; the Elizabeth Foundation of the Arts, New York; and others. Coburn is the author of two books: I’m that angel (2012) and Robots Building Robots (2013), published by the Center for Contemporary Arts Glasgow. His texts have appeared in e-flux journal, Frieze, ArtReview, Dis, Mousse, LEAP, and Rhizome. Coburn’s latest writing project, Ergonomic Futures (2016-), is an evolving website of short stories accessible at www.ergonomicfutures.com.
Remote Viewer was originally commissioned for Techne, a performing and visual arts production platform created by Theater Rampe and Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. As part of this commission, Coburn collaborated with poet Ian Hatcher on remote viewing workshops for the public. These workshops will be conducted later this year at Triangle Arts Association in New York.
Media
Schedule
from April 20, 2018 to July 27, 2018
Opening Reception on 2018-04-20 from 18:00 to 21:00