bitforms gallery …

            bitforms gallery                                                                   for immediate release
            529 West 20th Street
            New York, NY 10011
            Tel. (212) 366-6939




                                                          GOLAN LEVIN
                                                  new installations & sculpture

                              Golan Levin debuts interactive artworks at bitforms gallery in New York.

                                                November 30, 2007 - January 12, 2008
                                                       bitforms gallery nyc


            bitforms gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by artist Golan Levin. Known for his
            work in audiovisual performance and interactive software art, Levin presents five intimate new works
            at bitforms gallery. A rare opportunity to experience Levin's work firsthand, this exhibition will conclude
            with an artist's talk at the gallery on 12 January, 2008 at 4:00 PM.

            Levin's new works signal a shift in his interests toward spectatorship and the human gaze as a means
            of activating visual art experiences. The performative behavior and imagery in many of the new pieces
            is constructed from the artworks' own history of being observed. Ultimately envisioned as systems of
            feedback, these works play with the sights and vision of an art audience and are intended to be
            experiential. Responding to each viewer's unique body, face and eye movements, these works
            connect individually with each participant.

            Two of the pieces exhibited specifically use eye movement as a real-time interface that impacts
            Levin's visual compositions. Creating a typographic tapestry of recursive observation, Eyecode records
            and replays brief video clips that are articulated by the duration between two blinks. Responding to a
            viewer's gaze with a variety of psychosocial behaviors, the Opto-isolator features an solitary
            mechatronic blinking eye, at human scale, peering behind a black veneer. Among other forms of
            feedback, this artwork looks its viewer directly in the eye; intently studies its viewer's face; looks away
            coyly if it is stared at for too long; and blinks precisely one second after its viewer blinks.

            A synaesthetic abstraction of the gravity within negative spaces, the Interstitial Fragment Processor
            collects and drops contoured forms inside a picture plane. Soft red and blue animated objects sink
            toward the gallery floor, producing a sonic improvisation of vertical decent. Temporal composition in
            this work operates in response to viewers' shadows cast on the gallery walls.

            Using framing that is similar to a mugshot, Reface (Portrait Sequencer) is surreal video mash-up that
            focuses in on three horizontal sections of a viewer's head. Based on the popular parlor game,
            "Exquisite Corpse", this work composes endless admixtures of the personalities and genetic traits of
            its visitors. The kinetic portraiture in this work engages a sense of humor and narrative invention.

            Ghost Pole Propagator captures and replays the "skeletons" of passersby in its environment, creating a
            layered and dynamic tapestry that reflects the history and activity of a locale. Presenting a universal
            communication of presence, attitude and gesture, the stick-figures this artwork generates are compact
            and expressive means of representing the human form.


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529 west 20th street bitforms.com 212 366 6939 info@bitforms.com
             Golan Levin's (b. 1972, New York) work combines equal measures of the whimsical, the provocative,
             and the sublime in a wide variety of online, installation and performance media. He is known for the
             conception and creation of Dialtones: A Telesymphony, a concert whose sounds are wholly performed
             through the carefully choreographed dialing and ringing of the audience's own mobile phones, and for
             interactive information visualizations such as The Secret Lives of Numbers and The Dumpster, which
             offer novel perspectives onto millions of online communications. Levin's other recent performance and
             installation projects use augmented-reality technologies to create real-time, multi-person visualizations
             of their participants' speech and gestures.

             Levin's work has been exhibited in the 2004 Whitney Biennial; the New Museum of Contemporary Art;
             the Kitchen; and the Neuberger Museum; Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria; The Museum of
             Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan; NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo, Japan; and the
             Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, among other venues. Public
             commissions include the Tate Modern online and artport at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
             Levin's funding credits include grants from Creative Capital, The New York State Council on the Arts,
             the Rockefeller MAP Fund, The Greenwall Foundation, the Langlois Foundation, and the Arts Council
             of England. Levin received undergraduate and graduate degrees from the MIT Media Laboratory,
             where he studied in the Aesthetics and Computation Group. Presently Levin is Associate Professor of
             Electronic Time-Based Art at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also holds courtesy appointments
             in the School of Computer Science and the School of Design.


             Opening Reception
             bitforms gallery, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, Friday, November 30, 2007

             Artist's Talk
             bitforms gallery, 4:00 pm, Saturday, January 12, 2008

             Gallery Hours & Directions
             Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. Nearest subway is the C to 23rd St

             bitforms gallery is devoted to emerging and established artists who embrace new media and
             contemporary art practices.

             Upcoming
             bitforms gallery is will be featured December 5-9 at Pulse Miami contemporary art fair, Stand B-01, in
             the Wynwood District. In New York, the next exhibition at bitforms gallery debuts new work by Björn
             Schülke January 17 - February 28, 2008.

             Contact Information
             press@bitforms.com
             www.bitforms.com




529 west 20th street bitforms.com 212 366 6939 info@bitforms.com