InLiquid Gallery

In anamnesis, we delve into the intricate tapestry of the human experience, exploring the profound themes of existence, memory, and the interplay of technology with our intimate lives. Featuring six artists: Doug Bucci, williamCromar, Lyn Godley, Zach Mellman-Carsey, John Singletary, and Chris Vecchio, this exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the cyclical nature of life, the inevitability of mortality, and the ways we navigate our connections with one another and the world around us.

The term "anamnesis," derived from ancient Greek, signifies the act of remembering and recalling past experiences. Each artist engages with the echoes of memory—personal and collective — with a unique connection to technology. John Singletary I'm his piece Traces and Lyn Godley in her piece Floating on a Breeze, highlight our origins and the roles we play for each other and ourselves, while williamCromar and Doug Bucci interrogate how our recollections influence our interactions with the present and the past through the reimagining of historical art objects. 

In the other sense of “anamnesis,” referring to a patient's medical history, Bucci’s work dives into the endlessness of living with chronic illness. Zach Mellman-Carsey and Chris Vecchio draw from the physicality of anatomy and its integration with technology through interactive, and in some cases functional, sound objects that are only activated by the proximity to one's body. Depicting infinite cycles, repetition, life, and death, this intimate exhibition ultimately challenges us to confront our shared humanity and the myriad ways we remember and relate to our existence.

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About the Artists:

Doug Bucci

Doug Bucci is an artist and educator in the field of jewelry whose work utilizes digital processes to explore and display biological systems and the effect of disease on the body. Computer-aided technologies allow Bucci to view and simulate not only data but patterns and cell forms, which can be transformed into meaningful, personal, and wearable art. Bucci views his digital process as one that allows for creative freedom unfound in traditional handmade methods.

His work is in the collections of the Windsor Castle, Berkshire, London; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; Newark Museum, New Jersey; Deutsche Goldschmiedehaus Hanau, Germany; Design Museo, Helsinki, Finland; and The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Bucci is also Assistant Professor and Head of the Metals/Jewelry/CAD-CAM Program Head at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, PA.

Statement
My work is a confluence of art and science, as much of the work I create as an artist reflects my journey with Diabetes. I have been conducting research, creating data, and utilizing computer-aided design processes to explore and display biological systems and the effect of disease on the body. I use anatomy, cellular structures, and biological functions as inspiration, and I use biological data, resonant imaging, and emerging technologies to create. I am researching how technology can transform biological processes into meaningful, personal, wearable art via digital technology. Data can be manipulated into tangible forms through my use of CAD to produce such objects. I can also envision these concrete visualizations helping people to maintain optimal health and well-being. These objects function in the traditional purpose of jewelry as personal expression while incorporating emerging health technologies with CAD technology.

My jewelry and metals foundation, together with my CAD expertise, has allowed me also to engage the fields of woodworking, architecture, industrial design, and medicine. I have collaborated with other artists to create beautiful objects, including furniture, lighting, sculpture, and jewelry made out of blood glucose data. Digital techniques have opened multiple possibilities for artistic innovation and collaboration.

It is essential to look outside of traditional means of making and derive inspiration from the newest technologies. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) technologies are traditionally associated with industrial processes; however, I view the digital medium as allowing for creative freedom unfound in traditional analog methods. These processes allow me the manipulation of form, making it exceptionally valuable in my practice. I represent current practice in the field by interrogating traditional forms of Craft, Art, and Design with this powerful technology.

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williamCromar

williamCromar is a Philadelphia-based artist and educator who blends architecture, music, animation, and art into unique sculptural and installation works, exploring humanity's paradoxical quest for order. He began this journey with a Silver Medal-winning animated film at the International Biennial of Architecture in Sofia, Bulgaria, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. His notable exhibitions include halfwayhouse at Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, redrain at aFSe Gallery, and the recent la trahison des signes at the National Liberty Museum. In 2008, he co-founded TangenT Art Collaborative, creating immersive art environments until the group disbanded due to COVID-19. Currently, Cromar focuses on cutting-edge digital works that merge fabrication and web design with art history. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and directed the Abington College MakerSpace, where he inspires emerging artists to create innovative new media art.

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Statment

I have often taken issue with that most temporally parochial label: “new media artist.” Although “new media” can describe visual art crafted with digital tools, it’s a term bereft of history. Every medium has at some point been new. And while digital media may be among the newest, the basic motivation for using any medium is as old as humanity: we still tell stories, whether by the flicker of a campfire or a screen.

Yet, something puts a real “new” in today’s new media: in a manner without parallel in history, digital media have democratized and globalized the delivery of our stories, fundamentally changing the terms of exchange between artist and audience. This has extended most recently to digital fabrication, with technologies such as 3D printing becoming ever more accessible.

In my most recent work, I’ve sought out parallel circumstances to our own in the history of art, where the spectator-artist relationship has been shaken up when artists have appropriated technology for unexpected use. I riff on the “misuse” of perspective or projection methodologies by artists from the Renaissance through the dawn of the Age of Information. And as we watch with a curious horror as the latter morphs into the Age of Misinformation, my work explores this tragic heart of the human condition, more basic [even] than the need for existential comforts [food shelter sex]: the necessity for —  and the futility underlying —  the human need to find order.

A smart artist makes the machine do the work. — Cornelia Solfrank

‍… the most creative way to work with technology is to misuse it. — Jon Ippolito

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Lyn Godley

Lyn Godley is a multi-media artist. Her designs, done as a partner of Godley-Schwan (1984-1998) and individually as Lyn Godley Design Studio (1999-Present), have been exhibited internationally and are in numerous international museums and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art NYC. Since 2000, her studio work has focused on merging light and art, exploring the relationship between art and technology and its impact on the viewer. Her studio practice is linked to her research on how integrating dynamic light in artwork can create a deeper engagement by affecting both the environment and the user. Her work merges painting and new media for public settings. Ultimately, Godley seeks to create a rhythm and sense of peace through her artwork, which she and the viewer can surrender to.

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In addition to her studio practice, Godley is a full-time Professor of Industrial Design at Thomas Jefferson University, where she has developed cross-disciplinary curricula in Lighting Design with a focus on Light and New Media as Experience. She is also the Director of the Jefferson Center of Immersive Arts for Health, an initiative researching the impact of dynamic light and interactive art on health. She has spoken at National and International conferences on Light and Health, Arts and Health, and Lighting Design Education.

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‍Zach Mellman-Carsey

Zach Mellman-Carsey is an artist and jeweler living in Lancaster, PA. Receiving an MFA from Indiana university in Bloomington, He creates wearable fine and conceptual jewelry and sculptures. When not creating visual art, Zach spends his time honing his culinary skills and experimenting with niche processes and ingredients dealing with food.  

With a reference to industrial structures, Zach Mellman-Carsey creates surreal depictions of their own body.  Combining these forms with set stones examines expressions of wealth and power while contrasting a narrative that expresses loss, grief, resilience and renewal.

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John Singletary

John Singletary is a photographer and multimedia artist based in Philadelphia, PA, whose installations are visual, intellectual, and sensory experiences. His work uniquely combines black-and-white photography, video, animation, and technology in a manner that explores our shared humanity. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from The University of the Arts and studied photography at the Community College of Philadelphia. His work has been collected by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Center for Fine Art Photography, as well as, other institutional and private collections. He has exhibited at the Pennsylvania State Museum, LG Tripp Gallery, The James Oliver Gallery, The Sol Mednick Gallery and The Delaware Contemporary Museum. His work has been reviewed and/or featured in Lenscratch Magazine, L’Oeil de la Photographie, the Od Review, Movers and Makers (WHYY) and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Singletary was a featured lecturer in the 2021 Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival and is a contributing writer for The Photo Review Journal.

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Traces Project Statement

Traces is an immersive, six screen, OLED and sound based work.The imagery and vignettes in   this ongoing multimedia experience use video, digital and stop motion animation, historical footage, and audio to depict the extraordinary light and darkness in the human condition and life events such as the genesis of our existence, and the purpose we serve to each other and ourselves.

The familiar and unpredictable illustrate the cycles of life across cultural barriers. Surveying the myriad and disjointed experiences that make up a life, Traces explores the way we construct our internal narratives and create meaning from experience. The audio component consists of a series of anonymously conducted interviews with a range of participants. The perspectives chosen reveal the universality and individuality of values, the intersectionality of symbolism across cultures, our lineages, and the perpetual cycles of life.

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ChrisVecchio

Statement:
Since the mid 1990s I have been creating active devices, installations, and interventions in an effort to probe and better understand the relationship between man and technology. Central to my work is an interest in the expressive potential of electronic devices and in the potential for ambiguous but suggestive user interfaces to generate new modes of interaction. A set of social precedents now exists for interaction with electrical technology. When these precedents are followed but subverted or there is no clear immediate “functional” objective, a viewer’s expectations are challenged and an opportunity for reflection or commentary on the human-technology relationship is created.
My sculptures take the form of singular (as opposed to mass produced), handmade electrical/mechanical objects. These devices serve as props to precipitate interaction with, and encourage dialog about, technology. My medium is electronics, i.e., the abstracted operation of the circuitry used as an analog to the thematic focus of the sculpture. By hand building both the circuitry and the containers, I am also personally establishing emotional and physical connections to technology. My devices tend to be compact – intimate in scale and, although my installation work is more immersive and expansive, it also generally takes the form of focal, technological objects which act as portals for interaction and the transformation of the surrounding environment.

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