NICOLO GENTILE

ROOPA VASUDEVAN

Featuring new works by Philadelphia-based artists Nicolo Gentile and Roopa Vasudevan,

HARD MEDIUM SOFTWARE explores materiality of digital mediation and materializations of labor through formal sites of physical and digital space. Gleaning the ruins of the recently-demolished 12th Street Gym, a former site of ritualized communion, bodybuilding, and cruising for queer Philadelphians, Gentile reconciles an absent site within the walls of AUTOMAT. Making everyday, ubiquitous symbols precious, Vasudevan hand-draws a series Quick Response (QR) codes, testing boundaries between human and machine through the laborious practice of inserting her own eyes and hands into a traditionally digital generation process. Engaging analog and digital media, HARD MEDIUM SOFTWARE invites new ways of encountering seemingly-quotidian sites and their meanings.

Accompanying the exhibition is a 74 page catalog, with contributions by Nicolo Gentile, Tessa Haas, Roopa Vasudevan, and Tannon Reckling, designed by Nicky Rhodes, and edited by Haas. The catalog is made possible by the Judson-Morrisey Excellence in New Media grant, awarded by the New Media Caucus, an affiliate society of the College Art Association.

VIEW THE CATALOG HERE.

TO PURCHASE A HAND-BOUND PRINT COPY ($40+SHIPPING), PLEASE CLICK HERE.

DOWNLOAD THE GALLERY MAP HERE.