Exhibition / 1 Apr – 30 Apr 2019

The Nemesis Machine

Stanza

The Nemesis Machine is a large installation representing the complexities of the real time city as an ever shifting and morphing system. It visualises life in the metropolis on the basis of real time data transmitted from a network of sensors, enabling the replica city of electronic components reflects in real time what is happening outside. In appearance, the Nemesis Machine is like Big Brother through the lens of the Internet of Things. It gives visitors a bird's eye view of a cybernetic cityscape, a sonic and visually animated cluster of skyscrapers constructed of silicon and circuit boards.

Small cameras capture images of the city’s visitors so that they become part of the artwork. The installation goes beyond simple single user interaction, by monitoring and surveying behaviours, activities, and changing information in the world around us using networked devices and electronically transmitted information across the internet. This includes observation from a distance by means of custom-made sensors, networked cameras and computers. The artwork reforms this information and data creating what the artist calls ‘parallel realities’.

Through The Nemesis Machine, Stanza is positing a new social space that exists in between the independent online networks where future cities will be merged in real time to create connected up data cities. The landscape will become an observable. The installation poses the question of who owns the data and speculates that virtual borders will create new systems of control.

Stanza

Stanza is an internationally recognised British artist, who has been exhibiting worldwide since 1984. His artworks have won twenty international art prizes and awards including:- Vidalife 6.0 First Prize Spain, SeNef Grand Prix Korea, Videobrasil First Prize Brazil, Cynet Art First Prize Germany, Share First Prize Winner Italy. Stanza’s art has also been rewarded with a prestigious Nesta Dreamtime Award, an Arts Humanities Creative Fellowship and a J.A. Clark bursary. Numerous commissions include work for Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Watermans Art Centre, FACT, and the Open Data Institute. His artworks have been exhibited with over one hundred exhibitions globally. Participating venues have included the Venice Biennale: Victoria Albert Museum: Tate Britain: Mundo Urbano Madrid: Bruges Museum: TSSK Norway: State Museum, Novosibirsk: Biennale of Sydney: Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Mexico: Plymouth Arts Centre: ICA London: Sao Paulo Biennale: De Markten Brussels: Transport Museum London: Ars Nova museum.

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