“Or a Motel”
Juliana Pivato
Jeff Tutt
Sophia Brueckner
Luke Munn


“Or a Motel” : repeats, pauses, stalls, repeats, calls for attention, calls to attention, waits, baits, switches, repeats, asks, asks for slowness, asks for patience, asks for attention.


Julian Pivato
Juliana Pivato holds an MFA in Sculpture from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009), a BFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University (2003) and a BMus from McGill University (1998). She has had solo exhibitions at the MacLaren Art Centre (Barrie) and Division Gallery (Montreal) and has been part of numerous group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Italy. From 2007–2009 she was the creator and host of Song from the Loop, a weekly experimental radio show on freeradiosaic.org in Chicago. Juliana lives and works in Toronto and is currently an instructor in the Department of Humanities at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
www.julianapivato.org

Jeff Tutt
Jeff Tutt is a 2011 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, he holds an MFA from the University of Guelph, and he was a finalist for western Canada in the 2003 RBC Painting Competition. Tutt's work explores the tropes of individual emotional expression amidst the absurdity of twenty-first century life. Drawing on everything from classical geometry to the Muppets, Jeff's paintings are at once comedic and contemplative. This reductive work, on the surface, is designed to be taken in at a glance but will benefit from sustained scrutiny – paradox is at the heart of Tutt's practice. Jeff Tutt can make a painting with one line.
www.jefftutt.com

Sophia Brueckner
When I worked in the tech world, I thought of an interface being a clean layer between the user and the technology being used. As an artist, I realized that this idea of an interface being a distinct boundary completely breaks down. In using technology to make art, I was surprised to discover to what extent technology conditioned my behavior and perceptions. By spending years mastering technology and repeatedly interfacing with it, I was unknowingly shaped by it. Currently in my artistic practice, I am writing software which involves repetitive interactions with the computer to both investigate and bring awareness to this power relationship. It is unclear if I am controlling the computer through the interface or if it is controlling me.

The definition of good user interface design is uncannily similar to Foucault's concept of governmentality, which describes the way governments use techniques to produce citizens best suited to fulfill those governments' policies. Good interface design empowers the user to effortlessly accomplish some goal without drawing any attention to itself. While it is empowering the user to harness complex technologies to do useful tasks, it is at the same time guiding (even controlling) the user's behavior and thoughts. Ideally, the user does not think about the interface at all, only about accomplishing their goal successfully. Currently, this new form of governmentality is not the creation of a defined group, but it is emergent from the culture of the tech world. It emerges from many small decisions, often seemingly unimportant, by the many well-intentioned designers and engineers only trying to do their best with whatever feature for which they are responsible.

While I am able to view technology critically, I am not at all suggesting we should reject technology altogether. I remain passionate about engineering and design, and I still believe that technology has the potential to have a huge, positive impact on the world. The question becomes this: now that I have recognized the overwhelming power of technology to dictate our behavior, what will I do with this knowledge? How can I bring awareness to how we are conditioned by the technologies we use and its potential dangers? In the cases where I feel this is already happening in a negative way, is it possible for me to circumvent or subvert that through what I make? How do I apply this awareness to ethically design new technologies that give users a genuine sense of agency? And, finally, how can I encourage others to do the same?
www.sophiabruechner.com

Luke Munn
Luke Munn is an interdisciplinary artist based in Berlin with work focusing on the immaterial – sound, movement, memory, light and other media – using the body and code, objects and performances to activate relationships and responses. His projects have featured in the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Electrosmog Festival, Causey Contemporary Brooklyn, Q-O2 Brussels, and Laborsonor Berlin, with commissions from Aotearoa Digital Arts, Creative New Zealand and TERMINAL and performances in Paris, Dublin, Chicago, Berlin, Auckland, and New York.
www.lukemunn.com