Northcutt Steele Gallery

MSUB Department of Art’s Northcutt Steele Gallery is proud to feature the work of Barry Whittaker in None of This Is Real from February 20–March 28. Whittaker will discuss his work at 6:30pm on Thursday, March 15 in LI148, the lecture hall next to the gallery. A catered reception for the artist will precede and follow the talk. The exhibition, talk, and reception are all free and open to the public.

None of This Is Real offers a colorful voyage through a group of densely-layered digital videos and digital prints exploring the aesthetic possibilities of technological communication as subject and process. The works investigate image communication in its fractured and disrupted forms, taking as a point of departure the misunderstandings and de-contextualization that make familiar images appear alien.

According to the artist: “This exhibition invites the viewer to consider images and information stored within our devices as raw material to be reconsidered and reconstituted by inorganic ‘minds’ into new scenes or worlds. What happens when our data isn’t in use, or what is possible when it is misread? Is it possible for a computer simulation to generate a new world? Could a game open another dimension? How might these questions help us imagine new worlds or even gain a new understanding of our own?"

Barry Whittaker received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has taught in the U.S., France, China, and Japan and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at University of Toledo. His work has been shown extensively across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Recent exhibitions include: ThrowingThingsattheSky, which opened at 3331Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo; #TAGGINGART#, an exhibition and print project through VisionMagazine, Shanghai, China; FridayFlash #10: DigitalAnimationNow, Denver, CO; STROBENetwork, at FLUX Factory, Long Island City, NY; and Playpublikat FORUM, Krakow, Poland.