DiMoDA 2.0: Morphḗ Presence

DiMoDA, or the Digital Museum of Digital Art, is an ongoing interactive collection, exhibition, and conservation project founded and directed by artists William Robertson and Alfredo Salazar-Caro. This exhibition was organized by invited curators Eileen Isagon Skyers and Helena Acosta. DiMoDA 2.0: Morphḗ Presence, presents recent works by Miyö Van Stenis, Theoklitos Triantafyllidis, Brenna Murphy, and Rosa Menkman—four young artists exploring the emergent form of virtual reality. To experience these works, please put on a headset and hold a video-game controller.

Miyö Van Stenis’s Miyö’s War Room examines how contemporary video games, social networks, and internet culture sexualize women and girls and pressure men and boys into aggressive roles. Brenna Murphy’s Vectoral~Sentience_Stack offers an optically challenging and meditative visual experience, in which the viewer seems to float in a vibrating optical illusion. Theoklitos Triantafyllidis’s humorous Self Portrait (interior) becomes a claustrophobic tour of the internal workings of the human body. Rosa Menkman’s DCT Syphoning The 64th Interval is a vibrating black and white static topography that depicts an image as it is being rendered through encoding technology. While distinctly different in their visual manifestations and conceptual aims, each of these works intertwines formal and conceptual approaches with emergent technologies, delicately balancing criticality, humor, and experimentation. 

This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by Seth Stolbun and The Stolbun Collection.

More about DiMoDA
Artists have long been innovative cultural contributors, and DiMoDA presents artists as multifaceted producers and critics of, and participants in, visual, popular, and technological culture. Founded by artists William Robertson and Alfredo Salazar-Caro in 2015, DiMoDA debuted as a self-titled iteration as a part of the online-based Wrong Biennale, and as a solo exhibition at Transfer Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. This exhibition, DiMoDA 2.0: Morphḗ Presence, marks the first time that a Digital Museum of Digital Art project has been shown in a museum in the United States.

William Robertson is a new-media artist and museum professional living and working in Chicago. He has participated in Chicago’s glitch and new-media scenes as an active member creating live A/V live performances and installations, an organizer co-founding Tritriangle in 2012, and a collaborator with artists in Chicago and New York. His work explores physical and psychological relationships between humans and machines in constructed environments. Robertson currently works for the Art Institute of Chicago managing technology for curatorial departments and exhibitions.

Alfredo Salazar-Caro is an artist, curator, and producer. His work exists at the intersection of portraiture and self-portraiture, installation, virtual reality, video, and sculpture, and recently has focused on exploring how virtual simulation can affect perceived reality. His work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Caracas, Shiraz (Iran), Mexico City, and other places, and has been featured in publications including Leonardo, New City, Art F City, and Creators Project. He lives and works in Mexico City, New York, and Chicago.