EXHIBITION PRESS RELEASE

3D I CHING CHART

ANTONIO CORTEZ PROJECTS../acd/Welcome.html

GET LUCKY: THE CULTURE OF CHANCE | SOMArts

SAN FRANCISCO, CA    | DEC. 17. 2011 - JAN. 26, 2012

THE CONCEPT

During my college years I used the I Ching (Book of Changes) several times to introduce change in my life.  In this project I revisit the I Ching and write 64 new mathematical formulations to develop 3D hexagrams. In the new 3D I Ching Chart I present the geometry resulting from each trigonometrical formulation and substitute the original hexagrams with a variety of 3D visual representations. 

In iChance, I show how each new object from the 3D I Ching Chart capture the spirit, form and meaning of the original hexagrams.  Inspired by John Cage, I experimented with chance operations to develop the aesthetics in the video. The video goes through each hexagram randomly so every viewer's experience will be determined by chance.  

Through this installation I invite the audience to connect with the implicit meaning behind the new 3D hexagrams, and rediscover the I Ching’s potential for introducing change

Get Lucky: The Culture of Chance, curated by Justin Hoover and Hanna Regev, provides a multimedia and multidimensional look at a vast array of fine art practices investigating the implications of chance operation in the arts and across cultural beliefs, values and practices. New works and site-specific installations created by 29 exhibiting artists hinge upon human interaction, explore varying levels of control in production, and experiment with structured randomness. Get Lucky includes works which conflate Wiccan-based Tarot practice and corporate culture, I-Ching with installation art, and the aesthetics of Zen pottery with Western abstract painting. Chance operations filter into both the activation of the artwork and the curatorial structure of Get Lucky: The Culture of Chance. An evolving wall displays a different selection each week of 25 from a set of 44 images chosen randomly from a hat by the curators. Reception with Performance: Friday, Jan. 6, 5–9pm. whatiamlookingfor-s.html

Exhibition Poster, from SOMARts

KENNETH BAKER’S REVIEW Jan 7, 2012 JOHN CAGE’s INFLUENCE EXPLORED IN ‘GET LUCKY’ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/06/DDIF1MK26T.DTL
..."Get Lucky" gathers works by 29 Bay Area artists to celebrate the persistent influence of Cage 20 years after his death... Cage (1912-1992) personified good humor, curiosity and readiness to consider any creative course of action that might have liberating effects on himself or others. Many people acquainted secondhand with his ideas or his work - particularly his use of chance procedures to avoid decision making and personal taste - regard his influence as destructive...But anyone who talked with Cage soon found such a position unacceptably simple. Gann quotes composer William Duckworth as saying that "at first, I thought that Cage had given me permission to do anything I wanted to - a benign anything goes. But lately, I've been feeling that Cage's real influence was the instilling of an understanding that dedication, and the committing of time to what you believe in, is of the utmost importance, and creates a very different kind of composer than one focused on fame and fortune." "Get Lucky" contains a lot of work that reflects the sort of discipline that indeterminacy disguises in Cage's work, as well as the permission it implies to defy all orthodoxy. ...In composing music and making or staging visual art, Cage frequently used the I Ching, the traditional Chinese divination system, as a means to give randomness to decisions. Several pieces here make explicit reference to it, notably a work by Antonio Cortez in both static and digital display. By adept use of design software, Cortez translated the 64 two-dimensional hexagrams of the I Ching into colorful 3-D models, referencing, as Cage typically did not, the hexagrams' metaphorical associations. Read the whole review > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/06/DDIF1MK26T.DTL

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

GET LUCKY: THE CULTURE OF CHANCE @ SOMArts

iCHANCE: Adding Dimensions to the I Ching, 2011, one channel video (shuffled & looped) 5:55 min

Premiering  on the eve of the centennial celebration of John Cage’s birth, “Get Lucky: The Culture of Chance” explores and assesses the full range and impact of the groundbreaking Artist’s practice in the discipline of music and beyond. In addition, the exhibition seeks to underscore the need for balance, harmony, and objectivity in a complex and contentious world.

Chance operation inaugurated by John Cage into musical composition and the post-war avant-grade has blossomed into a fundamental component of contemporary artist’s repertoire of forms at play in aesthetic cultures across the globe and spanning disciplines, locations, and media.   For this exhibition artists from a variety of disciplines were encouraged to create works inspired by the ways in which luck, chaos, and chance operation are employed in artistic practice. This mandate led a number of artists to look to the birth of Dadaism, evoking the playful spirit of the Exquisite Corps parlor games and Jean Arps’ collages, while integrating these notions with contemporary digital culture.

“Get Lucky:  The Culture of Chance“ honors John Cage as a pioneering artist whose influence is not yet fully understood. The exhibition explores many facets of our global and technological culture, making reference to Cage’s use of I Ching and computer processing. The works in the exhibition fuse ancient and contemporary art practices, suggesting links between eastern and western cultural traditions. The phenomenon of chance and its uses pervade contemporary culture. It is a field rife with possibility and interpretations.        

Curated by:

Justin Hoover & Hanna Regev

© all rights reserved |  2012

3D I CHING CHART, 2011,

pigment print on archival paper,

Limited Edition, 48” x 40”

SELECTED PROJECTS

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATIONS

IN THE SERVICE OF ART

3D I CHING CHART

BIOGRAPHY

SELECTED PROJECTS

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATIONS

IN THE SERVICE OF ART

3D I CHING CHART

BIOGRAPHY

SELECTED PROJECTS

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATIONS

IN THE SERVICE OF ART

3D I CHING CHART

BIOGRAPHY

KENNETH BAKER’s REVIEW

Installation Shot by Bryan Hewitt. © Somarts | 2012

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATIONS

SELECTED PROJECTS

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATIONS

IN THE SERVICE OF ART

3D I CHING CHART

THE DYNAMIC

BOOK OF CHANGES

BIOGRAPHY