Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
www.the-cyber-kitchen.com
Reviewed by: Kirsty Walker
Sitting in a caravan in the north west Highlands of Scotland, I feel a long way from anywhere I can contemplate contemporary art, until I switch on my computer and type in www.the-cyber-kitchen.com. In a few cyber-seconds, I have found my way to the home page of the new website of UK net-artist, Jess Loseby.
Pushing past phrases like 'cyber-domestic aesthetic' and 'globally-based artists' (sorry to hear there are no aliens involved), I enter the kitchen, pan round it and start clicking on objects. The thirty artists involved in the project have responded, with varying degrees of imagination but as with many art websites, the technology lags behind the enthusiasm. Loading time becomes tedious and despite spending several minutes downloading new pieces of software some of the works remain a mystery. I almost don't bother when, the worryingly named Babel, "a British/Canadian artist' and recovering Marmite addict" required yet more downloading to view Marmite. I am glad I persevered however, it worked perfectly and was the best piece in the kitchen – a short film of Marmite headed people overlaid on Edison's 1900 footage of the Eiffel Tower – looking probably as pixilated as in the original. The artists may be 'globally-based', but the kitchen is definitely British what with the homage to Marmite and the lack of any decent coffee-making facilities.
Call me old fashioned, but a computer is fundamentally a screen, not a frame, a wall or a 3D space, so it makes sense to see things moving on it. This may be why I enjoyed Saraswati Gramich's Pest & pet, a delightful animation of purple housemites. Interactivity, another great property of computers, is exploited by some artists. In Damon Cleary's Objects taped to a fridge the pictures change when you drag a cursor over them. Laurent Sauerwein's Salt not only changes to pepper, but also serves as a link to his website and thus advertising for his design business. Text features in many works – you can even edit Judson's Blender message, albeit only temporarily. Alana Jelinek adopts a grimy wall in the kitchen as her personal diary of racism, Me – you – them, in which the surfer can click on a random day and see what kind of random racism she has encountered; it is well set out and nicely layered. Jess Loseby's own contribution, Boy in the kitchen is a list of foodstuffs, whilst the mysteriously named, Mr Milk, has created a whole website of the "world's most bizarre and sexy milk bottles", which at first seems like an amusing sideswipe at cyber-porn and then starts to look like a tool of the old Milk Marketing Board. Simon Morse's flow chart on the possible outcomes of using a mousetrap or not, is more entertaining.
My eyes start to glaze over as Cathy Ward and Eric Wright's table slowly appears, the texture of which may be interesting in the raw but is totally lost on-screen. In an overpopulated and crowded world the cyber-kitchen is a brave attempt at showcasing art and bringing an exhibition to remote or housebound art lovers, but virtual is no substitute for actual and I long to walk into the physical space of a gallery again. Whilst there are flashes of inspiration here the quality is as random and mixed as the internet itself. However Loseby is looking for more artists so things are still cooking in the kitchen.
Writer detail:
KIRSTY WALKER
is an art writer, interpretive consultant and travel journalist.
Venue detail:
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