UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — "BLACK NIIGHT WHIITE LIIGHT," an exhibition of video works by New York City-based artist Sean Capone, is on view in the HUB Gallery now through Nov. 6.
"BLACK NIIGHT WHIITE LIIGHT" showcases works from two of Capone's ongoing series, "Avatar Poetics" and "Global Illuminations." In these videos, Capone utilizes a conspicuous overabundance of digital graphics techniques and visual effects technology (including motion capture, 3D character animation and generative art software) to explore an absurdist and hallucinatory social media landscape — a landscape illuminated by pseudo-neon glows and scrolling media feeds, and populated by logorrheic talking heads, artificial intelligence oracles and cyberpunk poet philosophers.
These electronic gurus, chatbots, trolls and tricksters earnestly struggle to communicate while maintaining linguistic and bodily coherence within the chimerical artifice of their screen-based existence — what Capone refers to as “the body horror of the uncanny valley.”
Capone has worked extensively in the digital video and animation field for over 20 years and has developed a wide-ranging body of work across its many aspects: film and TV, video games, music videos, gallery and museum exhibitions, festival presentations, event and stage scenography, and site-specific public art installations.
Capone's work has been commissioned and presented at events and exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art, the MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Art and Design, SFMoMA, the Museum of Biblical Art, and 150 Media Stream, as well as in screenings at Supernova Festival, the Visual Studies Workshop, and the National Gallery. His writings and interview series with animation artists appear in BOMB Magazine. Capone also has projection work installed in the Bayard D. Kunkle Activities Center, Hammond Building.
Class, student organization and University office visits are welcomed. Interested groups can email Galleries@psu.edu.
For more information on this and other exhibitions, contact HUB-Robeson Galleries at (814) 865-2563, or visit the website at studentaffairs.psu.edu/hub/art-galleries. Keep up to date with HUB-Robeson Galleries by signing up for the Listserv or following on Instagram @hubrobesongalleries.