Incident by Tessa Elliot

3rd July - 15th August 1999

Collision of past, present and virtual worlds

Images from past, present and virtual worlds collide in a dramatic new exhibition at Eastbourne’s Towner Art Gallery. Incident by Tessa Elliott uses video and computer images, natural light and laser projection together with specially designed ‘intelligent’ computer software (known as a neutral network) to create an electronic collage of images or incidents.

These incidents are drawn from three sources - details of paintings from the Towner’s collections; the ever changing view from a window of the gallery; digital images grabbed from the Incident website.

Visitors will be able to follow changing images from room to room. In room one, a pinhole camera obscura captures the view in the park outside the Towner which is projected on to a screen. This moving image of everyday activity is filmed by a video camera and transmitted to a computer. The computer randomly pulls images from the Incident website, mixing the real view of the park with the digital images to invent anew picture. The image manipulation comes from room to room then is read by neural network software which can recognise shapes and colour and translate them into text. The resulting words are then laser projected into a final room, creating new poetic descriptions of the manipulated pictures.

Incident uses cutting edge data collection, transmission and recognition technologies to make hybrid pictures with new text descriptions. The exhibition explores the point at which the past (paintings from the Towner’s collections) meets the present (live view of the park) and the virtual (the internet).

Tessa Elliot describes the effect of the exhibition on the gallery: "The Towner is more akin to a studio, where the works are produced, a crucible of transmission and virtual communication."

Incident is part of Event Coast, a series of five new video and multimedia exhibitions on the South east coast during 1999-2000. It is a celebration of communication using new technologies and is funded by the arts council. Opening times are noon to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday, 2-5pm Sunday and bank holiday Mondays. Entrance is free. The exhibition is on from tomorrow, Saturday, until August 15.

Sussex Express
Friday July 2 1999