Violent Nature

Fringe Exhibitions presents:

Violent Nature - Adialog with evolved colonial aerospace industries from past millennia

Chris Csikszentmihalyi
Edmund Ming-Yip Kwong

Exhibition Dates: December 1 - December 29, 2007

Opening Reception: Saturday, Dec 1 from 6 - 8 PM

Violent Nature is an exhibition of installation and video by Chris Csikszentmihályi and collaborator Edmund Ming-Yip Kwong. This project is made possible with generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology

"The theme of mastery in the literature of technology is even more evident with regard to Western man's relationship to nature. Hence there are seldom any reservations about man's rightful role in conquering, vanquishing, and subjugating everything natural. This is his power and his glory. What would in other situations seem rather tawdry and despicable intentions are here the most honorable of virtues. Nature is the universal prey, to manipulate as humans see fit." - Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology

Chris Csikszentmihályi (USA) directs the Media Lab's Computing Culture group, which works to create unique media technologies for cultural applications. He has labored in the intersection of new technologies, media, and the arts for 15 years, lecturing, showing new media work, and presenting installations on five continents and one subcontinent. He is a currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, and was a 2005 Rockefeller New Media fellow. Csikszentmihályi's last solo exhibition was at the Location 1 Gallery in New York's Soho. He toured museums and nightclubs with his mechanical hip-hop device, DJ I, Robot, which was nominated for the Best Artistic Software award at Berlin's Transmediale. A previous piece, Natural Language Processor, was commissioned by the KIASMAMuseum in Helsinki, Finland. The catalog for his installations Skin and Control is published by Charta, and he served on the National Academy of Science's ITand Creativity panel. Csikszentmihályi received an MFAfrom the University of California at San Diego, and a BFAfrom the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Edmund Ming-Yip Kwong (Hong Kong) is an artist and architect studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked at the design office YungHo Chang in Beijing, and his work has been exhibited at Venice Biennale 10th International Architecture Exhibition, Cities, Architecture and Society 2006, the Toronto design show in 2006, and PRC at Boston University in 2007. Kwong's architectural work is focused on material research and design applications for lightweight construction.He has developed ultra-lightweight furniture, new techniques for the application of plywood -- a way for him to participate in reducing the environment footprint of everyday objects. Kwong has a BAfrom the University of Toronto.