4 June 2013
7pm
An off-site event at iomart data centre, Glasgow – close to Kinning Park Subway, exact address will be sent to RSVPs.
Event free, but booking is essential. Please email info@daviddalegallery.co.uk to reserve a place.
David Dale Gallery are delighted to host a performative reading of I’m that angel, by New York based artist Tyler Coburn. I’m that angel is a cycle of writings and performances that explore the conditions of how we work on and against the computer, narrated from the perspective of a “content farmer”: an emergent type of online journalist contracted to generate articles based on words peaking in Google Trends. This performance will be held at iomart data centre, the physical location of the servers used for hosting and cloud computing – in short, the internet. Coburn has previously held performances at the Google Building in New York (2013) and at Digital Realty in Los Angeles (2012), this will be the first in the UK.
As a text, I’m that angel takes shape as a stony stone, a cut in the stream—a book. Its format shores up the paraliterary, confessional, and epistolary precedents for our virtual vernaculars. Designed by Eric Nylund, the pages reify found quotes, trending language, anecdotes, notes and rants; call it inattentionality as method.
If the book sustains a material limit that belies the diffuse shape of the cloud, then its readings attempt similar concretions by having reader and audience occupy the sites that compose the physical form of the Internet. On other occasions, readings pair with documentation shot on server floors, thus temporarily constructing the data center within the art institution. Each scenario discloses secure spaces in which reader and audience already reside, for we encounter the material doubles of our virtual subjectivities as data stored in server form.
Rather than concede to the seeming intractability of cognitive capitalism, these readings potentiate novel, critical operations through shared access, listening and discussion. Across its parts, I’m that angel argues for a renewed consideration of the immanent horizons of subjectivity, sociability and creativity.
In May and June, Coburn is performing at data centres and institutions throughout Europe, including Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp; CAC Vilnius; Grazer Kunstverein; the Pionen Data Center, Stockholm; EvoSwitch, Amsterdam, in collaboration with San Serriffe; e-shelter, Berlin, in collaboration with Archive Kabinett; Volta, London, in collaboration with South London Gallery; and Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce, in collaboration with Peep-Hole. Copies of I’m that angel are available at bookshops and institutions worldwide.
Tyler Coburn (b. 1983) is an artist and writer based in New York. His performances, sound works and installations have been presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; LA><ART, Los Angeles; FormContent, London; and SculptureCenter, New York.
AIM listed iomart Group plc is one of the UK’s leading cloud companies, specialising in the delivery and management of mission-critical hosting services, enabling customers to reduce the costs, complexity and risks associated with maintaining their own web and online applications. The Group owns and manages its own UK data centre estate and dedicated fibre network allowing it to offer a unique 100% business uptime guarantee with all hosting services to its customers.
Supported by iomart Group plc.