Artechouse’s ‘Future Sketches’ Shows Guests “What Code Feels Like”
The latest exhibit at DC’s Artechouse, Future Sketches, asks guests to imagine different possible futures — for the intersection of computation and design, for the interaction between humans and computers, and for an expressive augmented reality. Then it puts guests right into that future.
“What I’m trying to show in the work that I’m doing, and in some of the projects that we’re highlighting in this lab, is that I’m trying to explore how the computer sees the face, how we augment the face, and how we see art in faces,” says Zach Lieberman, a dynamic pioneer in the field of coding and interactive media.
Lieberman creates digital poetry through code, technology, and theory. He writes his own software to create artwork from this and is a co-creator of openFrameworks, an open-source C++ toolkit for creative coding.
“[Code] is a medium that I love, but it’s not always easy to understand what it means,” shared Lieberman in a Conversation with the Artist that took place at the exhibition’s debut before opening to the public. “I celebrate the code… All of the things in this exhibit are created with text, but you don’t always see the language that makes it happen, so I want to share that.”
As a result of the coding, guests are able to participate in the artwork through their unique interactions with it.
Future Sketches is the first solo exhibition of Lieberman’s work in Washington D.C., with an emphasis on his eclectic style of sketching with code for creative exploration. The installations presented draw on over a decade of work and research in the field of media art, exploring how the body, voice and gesture can be transformed in expressive ways.
“Sometimes I go to a museum and I see an exhibit and I want to buy a sketchbook. Now I want to make artwork or create a space that makes me feel like I want to make something, too. I also want to show… what code feels like.”
Future Sketches will be on view at Artechouse through March 1, 2020.
