Sue Beyer | Visual artist

SUE BEYER \\ VISUAL ARTIST
DIGITAL COMBINES . XANADU . PAINTING . NEW MEDIA
CURATION

// NEWS 2022-24	SIGN UP TO MY NEWSLETTER * indicates required Email Address *

:: ACADEMIC CONFERENCE PAPER	The Material Image 1-3 November 2024 The National Art School & UNSW, Sydney, Australia Abstract The advent of blockchain smart contracts and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have not only given visual artists an alternative channel to sell their work, but a new medium to use as part of their art practice. In this paper the new genre of digital combines, first coined by artist and educator Claudia Hart in 2021, will be discussed. Like Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines made from 1953 to 1964, digital combines are made up from a fusion of discordant objects. Physical, digital, and virtual mediums and objects are joined together using instruction placed in the metadata of an NFT, housed on a blockchain. The NFT acts as a type of conceptual glue holding the piece together, and like an instruction-based artwork, the metadata tells us how the object works and how it is to be sold or not sold. Examining this new genre through a metamodern lens enables us to see how digital combines work using a type of ontological oscillation, between mediums and objects, the material and the immaterial, and different points of time of art history, consecutively in the one object. It is in this oscillation that a structure of feeling, or affect can be found. This structure of feeling is highlighted as a type of confusion, where the stuff holding the object together is not readily apparent and cannot be seen until you follow the QR code link to the record on the blockchain that holds the metadata. Keywords Multidisciplinary, Visual Art, Digital Combine, Metamodernsim

:: JOURNAL ESSAY Fantasyland Autofiction: The Use of AI in Contemporary Art-Making	M/C Journal Published Oct 13 2024 Abstract: This essay explores a return to hope and romanticism by contemporary artists looking at themes of fantasy worlds and mapping imaginary lands as a type of autofiction. These fantasylands are created in collaboration with hallucinating machine learning platforms, as a tool for contemporary art-making. Seen through the framework of Metamodernism, how does AI hallucination contribute to Metamodern structure of feeling? AI, as part of the metacrisis, places society and culture in a type of no man’s land or in-between, where rapid and unchecked advancements in machine learning and generative technologies are a further addition to an already complicated time, while simultaneously being a new and useful tool for contemporary artists.. Read the essay here

:: COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITION PRITTY SHRINY	Pritty Shriny 12-13 October 2024 The Wandering Room, Melbourne, Australia 'Pritty Shriny' is a digital combine that uses various objects and mediums to playfully examine the collaborative process between Thang Do and Sue Beyer. Reflection and performance are joined with painting, 3D printed objects, sound and digital video which are then ‘glued’ together conceptually using instructions placed in the metadata of an NFT. Paired is a series of curated exhibitions pairing two Naarm/ Melbourne based artists. The paired practitioners may choose to collaborate in some way or simply exhibit side by side. Sue Beyer is currently a candidate for a Doctorate in Visual Arts at Griffith University, and a sessional lecturer with the School of Design at RMIT in Naarm/Melbourne. Thang Do is a queer Vietnamese artist, based in Naarm/Melbourne whose body of work acts as fantasised vessels to channel the human obsession with spectacles as means of enhancing reality and inviting others to do the same to realise their aspirations.

:: SOLO EXHIBITION ANOTHER GREEN WORLD	Another Green World 11 – 22 September 2024 Red Gallery, Melbourne, Australia A digital combine installation based on the colour green that examines the idea of light as an object. This work is part of my PhD thesis that I am currently working on and due to complete in 2026. This is the blurb from the exhibition: A digital combine that explores the colour green using physical, digital and virtual objects joined together using instruction placed in the metadata of an NFT. Sue is interested in how these disparate objects make meaning through a type of oscillation; a central idea found in Metamodernism. The installation consisted of a variety of objects, which included painting, 3d printing, sound, VR, light and an NFT.

:: GROUP EXHIBITION PRESS	PRESS curated by Simone Hine 21st June – 7 July 2024 Grey Street Gallery Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia Press brings together the work of two artists, Sue Beyer and Tara Pattenden. Both artists employ digital technologies to produce physical objects that emphasise tactile, sonic and spatial experiences. These works locate technology in materiality, present as objects in the gallery. These technologies act as metaphors for networked data, while simultaneously pointing to the physicality of technological forms, which is often ignored in the digital era. For Beyer, the composition of self-portraiture is assigned to big data and machine learning. The resulting installation is a spatial and temporal cross-platform installation, which collages disparate data and ultimately tells the viewer more about the technology than the subject. Pattenden repurposes secondhand objects, materials and technologies within her sonic-based practice. Using software, she creates a scenario that is then completed by the viewer when they interact with the work. Both artists incorporate the automated nature of software technologies, to set in place a scenario that is completed independently of the artist. For Beyer, software determines the objects and subject; for Pattenden, the software allows a context for interaction and play within the gallery. In both cases, software is used to automate key components of the work, embracing chaos and chance as a method of production. Curated by Simone Hine: Simone Hine is an artist, curator and writer. Her artworks expand across performance, video, installation and sound. Recent works draw connections between the structures of contemporary visual culture and that of historical art practices. Writing and artworks explore the conditions of late-capitalism, with a particular focus on labour as it is redefined in a perpetually in-motion 24/7 society. Widely exhibited, her work has been included in Anne Marsh’s recent Doing Feminism monograph (2021) amongst other publications. Hine’s visual art practice is intertwined with her independent curatorial practice. She is a founding co-director of Kuiper Projects (Meanjin/Brisbane) a contemporary art gallery and project space (2017-present). She was also a founding co-director of Screen Space (Naarm/Melbourne), a screen-based gallery (2010 – 2016) and Beam Contemporary (Naarm/Melbourne), a commercial gallery (2010 – 2014). Hine holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne: School of Culture and Communication, in Art History.

:: GROUP EXHIBITION Speculative Futures	ACM SIGGRAPH at the ISEA2024 21-29 June 2024 Venue TBA, Brisbane, Australia The work Untitled (Latvia) was chosen to be exhibited in the exhibition Speculative Futures organised by ACM SIGGRAPH as part of the International Symposium of Electronic Art being held in Brisbane this year. This looped video with sound reflects on ideas that surround incomplete sets of information. The use of a greenscreen colour that fills spaces where information isn’t provided hints at what might be missing. LiDAR scanning has transformed an ordinary shrub into something extraordinary. Will this video become a record of foliage and sound that could be found in Daugavpils, Latvia when it was recorded in 2023? Or might it end up being a type of archive for future generations when our ecology breaks down and green shrubs no longer exist? These questions speculate on what might be… More information on the conference can be found here

:: JOURNAL ESSAY Deep Story 3A	Screen Thought Journal Published Dec 21 2023 Abstract: Deep Story 3a, a looped five-minute video made for social media, is narrated by an AI animated version of Sue Beyer employing a computer-generated voice. The video was made using Tokking Heads, an AI face animator app on iPhone, and Deep Story, an online AI script generator. Deep Story 3a is part of We Are Data, an ongoing project exploring what it means to be human through the lens of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. We Are Data uses physical, digital and virtual mediums that reference data gathered from AI and the internet on the topic of ‘Sue Beyer’. The gathered information, that may or may not be true, joins to create a biography on Beyer, written and told by big data and AI. Read the essay here

:: GROUP SHOW DigiAna Collective, Queens	Group show Opening night Saturday Dec 2 6-8 DigiAna Studios Queens, NY Exhibition continues until Dec 22nd Featuring work by: Roman Kalinovski, Seungjin Lee, Juan Álvarez, Momo, Visakh Menon, Tommy Mintz, Mark Romeo and Sue Beyer

:: GROUP SHOW Mirror, Portal - NARS Foundation, NYC	Season IV group show Opening night Friday Nov 17th 6-8 NARS Foundation 201 46th Street, 4th Floor, Brooklyn Exhibition continues until Dec 13th Featuring works by wei, Ravi Avasti, Sue Beyer, Jake Couri, Pauline-Rose Dumas and Maxime Bagni, Juyon Lee, Lauren Pirie, Sophie Sabet, Tülay Schakir, Ye’ela Wilschanski, Zhuyan Ye, and Chi Zhang. NARS Foundation is pleased to present Mirror, Portal, an exhibition featuring the Season IV International Residency Artists. Through multi-disciplinary practices spanning performance, sculpture, painting, and digital media, these works recontextualize viewpoints through reflections both real and imagined, transforming observations through the act of recording, documenting, and collecting. These works invite viewers to consider exploration and openness as a means of creating unexpected pathways for new perspectives. https://www.narsfoundation.org/2023-exhibitions/mirror-portal-season-iv-2023

:: GROUP SHOW Otras Formas, NYC	Nov 2023 - April 2024 Otras Formas 27 West 20th Street Suite #201, New York By appointment https://www.otrasformas.co/

:: JOURNAL ESSAY A Metamodern Spell Casting The Blockchain as a Conceptual Medium for Contemporary Visual Artists	M/C Journal Published Oct 4th 2023 Abstract: Using a Metamodern framework this article considers the NFT as a Metamodern spell casting, a magical instruction that transforms an object/s or idea into something else. Written using “sourcery”, the NFT is undetectable until the effects are made evident. NFTs are stored on a blockchain which is comparable to a chapter in the Akashic records–esoteric knowledge that is readily available to Techno-priests or the people who know how and where to look. Read the essay here

:: SUNSET PARK OPEN STUDIOS Open Studio Weekend	13-15 October 2023 NARS Foundation, 201 46th Street, 4th Floor Brooklyn, NY Sunset Park Open Studio Website NARS Foundation Website

:: SPRING/BREAK Art Show Group Exhibition	6-11 September 2023 265 Madison Avenue, New York SPRING/BREAK Art Show Website

:: MARK ROTHKO 2023 INTERNATIONAL PAINTING SYMPOSIUM	September 2023 Daugavpils, Latvia Rothko Center Website I am so excited to be participating in the Mark Rothko International Painting Symposium in September this year. For more information you can visit the Rothko Center Website here.

:: INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCY NARS FOUNDATION	Oct - Dec 2023 Brooklyn, NYC NARS Website I am looking forward to another visit to NYC in late 2023 to participate in the NARS Foundation studio residency for artists. For more information you can visit the NARS Website here.

:: EXHIBITION DIGITAL How artists use 'the digital' to talk about being human	Curated by Sue Beyer At Sandbox Studios Factory 9/102 Henkel Street, Brunswick, Melbourne Exhibition 4th - 14th December sue@suebeyer.com.au DIGITAL is an exhibition of work by international contemporary artists who make art that appears to be influenced by or possess digital characteristics, and is employed to explore ideas on what it means to be human. These concepts, which at first seem to contradict each other, create new meaning through an oscillation or as van den Akker et al (2019) explains, ‘a movement between (opposite) poles: not a binary so much as a continuum that stretches from one to the other, not a balance but a pendulum swinging between various extremes’. The common association of detachment or, ‘dehumanizing tendencies of the computer’, (Taylor 2014) at first can seem cold and clinical, but in hindsight can reveal aspects of being human that may not have been obvious to us before, by showing them in a different light. Artists in the exhibition: Aaron Hoffman, Andy Thomas, Anne Wilson, Area 32 [Tammy Honey and Shaun Wilson], Brandon Gellis, Carter Hodgkin, Chalda Maloff, Corinna Berndt, Danny Jarratt, Evangeline Cachinero, Ingmar Apinis, Irene Barberis, John Aslanadis, John Cox, Linda Loh, Lucie Králíková, Madeleine Joy Dawes, Malavika Mandal Andrew, Michael Pierre Price, Michelle Brown, Michelle Hamer, Patrick Lichty, Paul Snell, Sam Leach, Steven Rendall, Tammy Honey, Tina Douglas, Tommy Mintz and Visakh Menon.

:: JOURNAL ESSAY Digital Combines: A Metamodern Oscillation of Oppositional Objects and Concepts in Contemporary Interdisciplinary Art Practice	Read here The Official International Journal of Contemporary Humanities This article examines the proposed genre of Digital Combines, first coined by interdisciplinary artist and educator Claudia Hart in 2021, and how it aligns with ideas that can be found in the currently evolving term known as Metamodernism. While contemporary visual artists have long used unusual juxtapositions in their art making and presentation of work to tell a story or examine a concept Digital Combines take this further by situating the physical, digital and the virtual in space using a combination of traditional, new media and blockchain smart contracts. In the recent exhibition We Are Data held at Box Gallery in Melbourne during August 2022, an exploration of this new genre was investigated through the use of a combination of traditional and new media. The outcome was an installation using a metamodern framework that contributed to a greater understanding of the present moment in contemporary culture.

:: EXHIBITION We Are Data	Preview: Saturday 27th August 5-7pm At Sandbox Studios Factory 9/102 Henkel Street, Brunswick, Melbourne Exhibition 19th - 27th August We Are Data is an installation of my latest work, in an experimental form, that will evolve over the duration of the exhibition. My work is process driven and falls under the umbrella of Metamodernist theory, which includes post digital and post internet concepts. In other words, my work is influenced and made using tools associated with the internet and digital processes but doesn’t necessarily talk about these things. This exhibition uses a mix of electronic, painting and new media works, that reference data I gather from the internet and the physical world. Using various techniques the data is transformed and presented, to tell a story. This combination of mediums will be presented as a digital combine, using different mediums layered on top of each other like a giant collage that can cover walls and floors. The installations are filled with information, and reference the overwhelming amount of data that can be accessed digitally and physically on any given topic on the internet or in real life.

:: EXHIBITION & CONFERENCE IDMAa 2022: WIERD MEDIA Winona State University	IDMAa 2022: WEIRD MEDIA Conference and Exhibition Winona State University Winona, Minnesota June 24-26 This year’s iDMAa Conference, Exhibition, and Workshop will be focused on the theme “Weird Media” In keeping with iDMAa’s commitment to “militantly marginal” media practices, this year’s theme will focus on unconventional media studies—from the odd to the uncanny, from the suspiciously animated to the supernaturally ordained, from the familiar forms to far-out fabulations, from established to the emergent—we welcome fresh perspectives that offer insights into how strange mediation can be. The Conference will feature a keynote address by Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, authors of Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames (U of MN Press, 2017). The event will also include talks by artists and scholars, including, Margaret Dolinsky, Jennifer Gradecki, Amay Kataria, Talan Memmott, Stephanie Tripp, Giovanna Sun, Merit Thursday, Paul Echeverria, Yamin Xu, Betsy Pike, Josie Cutara, Patrick Lichty, Kristen Lillvis, David Wright, Daniel Lichtman, Rob Wittig, and Chris Blair. The Exhibition is curated by Patrick Lichty and juried by celebrated Iranian illustrator and artist Negin Ehtesabian, Wade Wallerstein (co-curator Transfer Gallery and Gray Area), digital pioneer Cynthia Beth Rubin, Roger Boulay (Gallery Director, WSU) and Brandon Gellis (Co-Director: Center for Design Thinking, University of Wyoming) and will feature experimental works by over 80 digital artists from around world, including A. P. Vague, Alan Sondheim, Alessandro Amaducci, Alex McKenzie and Dana Potter, Alien AI, Amay Kataria, Andre Perim, Andrey Rylov, Nastya Yatskhey, Alisa Ustinova, Asra Qarakhani, Aya Shabbar, Brian Skalak, Caitlin Fisher, Carrie Fonder, Carter Hodgkin, Citron \| Lunardi, Colin Goldberg, David Thomas Henry Wright (with Chris Arnold), Davide Porta, Derek Curry & Jennifer Gradecki, Diane Marsella, Dominick Rivers, Ellen Jantzen, Ershad Fatahian, Eva Davidova, F. C. Zuke, Farnoush Daroudgar, Frederick Maheux, Ghazaleh Seidabadi, Giovanna Sun, Gregory Little, Heejoo Kim, Isabella Uliasz, IZABELLA RETKOWSKA, Jack Bordnick, Jaka Železnikar, Jason Ramey, Jesse Farber, John C.S. Keston, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Joseph DeLappe, Justin Lincoln, Karl Erickson, Kat Mustatea, Kate Hollenbach, Kayoko Nakamura, Keif Oss, Liz Wierzbicki, Malavika Mandal Andrew, Margaret Dolinsky, Marjan Andaroodi, Merit Thursday, Mez Breeze, Michael Jantzen, Michael Marks, Mina Cheon, Nina Sumarac Jablonsky, Patrick LeMieux, Pavel Checkulaev, PlantBot Genetics Inc (aka Wendy DesChene + Jeff Schmuki), RAY LC, Renata Janiszewska, Robert B. Lisek, Ryan Lewis, S4RA, Scott Kildall, Stephanie Tripp, Sue Beyer, Taehee Kim, Talan Memmott, Tommy Mintz, Vincent DeZutti, Vladimir Kalnitsky, Will Luers, Yamin Xu, Yvette Granata, and Zen Cohen.

:: EXHIBITION Techspressionism: Digital and Beyond	Techspressionism: Digital and Beyond Group exhibition Southampton Arts Center New York April - July 2022 The Southampton Arts Centre presents innovative work in a broad range of styles, reflecting the expressive potential of electronic media. The exhibition includes the works of more than 90 artists working with technology from more than 20 countries around the world including Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Canary Islands, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Peru, Puerto Rico, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine and the United States.

:: RESIDENCY University of Wyoming USA	University of Wyoming Wyoming, USA March 2022 For two weeks in late March 2022 I visited the University of Wyoming in Laramie for a residency. I was invited to visit by Brandon Gellis an Associate Professor who is also an artist interested in new media art. I did some artist talks and was in the class room while I was there. I had a great time and feel very fortunate to be able to participate. You can view my artist talk on YouTube here

:: RESIDENCY Mothership NYC USA	Mothership NYC, USA March - May 2022 Mothership NYC is a combined live-work space and presentation arena for international artists across multiple disciplines in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, NYC. Run by a painter captain aided by a rotating crew of fellow artists, our ship’s mission is to serve as a welcoming landing platform for colleagues from elsewhere making the leap to NYC: We aim to support and promote our peers at all career levels through residencies, public programming & collaborative opportunities; build lasting transnational artist networks; and help retain creative forces in New York City.
copyright 2023 Sue Beyer