Adobe Museum of Digital Media Announces Two New Exhibitions

Mariko Mori: Journey to Seven Light Bay
Curated by Tom Eccles, Executive Director,
Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies
Exhibition Launches Nov. 9, 2011 at 12:01 a.m. EST

Inaugural Curator-in-Residence Program
InForm: Turning Data into Meaning
Curated by Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor,
Wired Magazine
Exhibition Launches Sept. 13, 2011 at 12:01 a.m. EDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (www.adobemuseum.com) is pleased to announce its 2011 fall exhibition schedule. On Nov. 9, 2011, at 12:01 a.m. EST, AMDM will launch Journey to Seven Light Bay, a new exhibition by Mariko Mori, curated by Tom Eccles, executive director of the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, Annandale in Hudson, NY. This marks AMDM’s fourth major exhibition since opening in October 2010. A trailer for Journey to Seven Light Bay is on view today at www.adobemuseum.com/TidaDome.

On Sept. 13, 2011, at 12:01 a.m. EDT, AMDM will launch InForm: Turning Data into Meaning, curated by Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired Magazine. This is the inaugural exhibition of AMDM’s Curator-in-Residence (CIR) Program, a new initiative that invites guest curators from the arts, culture, media and technology fields to use the museum’s online exhibition spacetoexplore groundbreaking digital work and illustrate how digital media shapes and impacts today’s society.

Journey to Seven Light Bay
Journey to Seven Light Bay explores Mariko Mori’s longtime interest in harmonizing nature, spiritualism and technology in the digital age. The exhibition illuminates Mori’s artistic process and provides a digital recreation of her upcoming physical project, Primal Rhythm, being built on Miyako Island off the coast of Okinawa, Japan.

Mori’s work speaks to the notion that the more digital and “connected” we become, the less we are directly connected to the non-digital world around us. By creating the exhibition in the virtual space of AMDM, people from all over the world will be able to have an understanding of Mori’s physical installation, Primal Rhythm, located on a remote island.

In the AMDM atrium, Journey to Seven Light Bay will present visitors with a glowing white orb, the Tida Dome, as the entry point to Mori’s digital installation. Specifically developed for the AMDM, Tida Dome was inspired by prehistoric caves of Okinawa that illuminate when sunlight hits from a specific angle. When entering the Tida Dome, visitors will experience a virtual/digital replication of this illumination, and will continue through the exhibition to virtually experience other elements of the physical project. The physical project being built in Japan consists of a Sun Pillar and Moon Stone, which together create a solar monument to the natural rhythms of the sun and moon and the alignment of celestial orbits during the winter solstice. The first phase of Primal Rhythm will open on Dec. 22, 2011, upon the completion of Sun Pillar in Japan.

Throughout Journey to Seven Light Bay, visitors will hear Mori’s commentary on Primal Rhythm as well as past art works. Mori’s work as the artist has long drawn inspiration from the intersection of nature and technology. Mori says, “I would like to reintroduce ancient culture to contemporary life in order to reconnect with nature.”

About Mariko Mori
Mariko Mori (born 1967, Japan) is a critically acclaimed artist whose work has been acquired by museums and private collectors worldwide. Educated in Tokyo, London and New York, Mori gained recognition for her interactive installation, WAVE UFO, which debuted at Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria in 2003. The installation was subsequently shown in New York and Genoa, and included in the 2005 Venice Biennale. It was also featured in Oneness, a survey of Mori’s work that opened at the Groniger Museum, The Netherlands, then traveled to the Aros Aarjus Kunstmuseum, Denmark and the Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine, and is currently traveling among three cities in Brazil.

Mori’s monumental installations have been exhibited, and her works have been in collections at renowned institutions throughout the world. Mori has received various awards including the prestigious Menzioni d’Onore at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 (awarded for “Nirvana”), and the Japanese Art in 2001 from Japan Cultural Arts Foundation. The artist is currently based in New York. A full biography is available upon request.

About Tom Eccles
Tom Eccles is executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and former director of the Public Art Fund in New York City from 1996-2005 where he curated more than 100 exhibitions and projects. Since joining CCS Bard in 2005, he has overseen the construction of the Hessel Museum of Art, which opened in November 2006; co-curated the inaugural exhibition of the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Wrestle; and organized exhibitions with artists Martin Creed (2007), Keith Edmier (2008) and Rachel Harrison (2009). In 2005, he organized the U.S. version of Uncertain States of America at CCS Bard. He also commissioned the permanent installation of Olafur Eliasson’s Parliament of Reality on the grounds of Bard (2009). In addition, Eccles has curated exhibitions at the Park Avenue Armory, Marian Goodman Gallery, and was a “correspondent” for the 2009 Venice Biennale (curated by Daniel Birnbaum).

Eccles studied philosophy, aesthetics and semiotics at the University of Bologna from 1985-1987. He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1989 with a master of arts degree in philosophy and Italian. A full biography is available upon request.

InForm: Turning Data into Meaning
Through InForm: Turning Data Into Meaning, Thomas Goetz presents an analysis of digital data from our online lives, and gives new meaning to this information through a series of newly commissioned and found images.

The commissioned images are based on data sets gathered from across the Internet centering on three themes: Wikipedia as a crowd-sourced network with constantly evolving data; how the Twitter platform of followers, interactions and re-tweeting ranks its various users; and the impact and fluidity of an online financial social network. A series of digital artists has been invited to use these data sets to create unique visualizations of the information. Goetz’s program intends to make visible the way our social lives are digitally quantified. The exhibition celebrates a new generation of visual pioneers – part graphic designer, part statistician, part artist – who have a facility for turning data into meaning.

About Thomas Goetz
Thomas Goetz is executive editor at Wired Magazine. In his 10 years at Wired, he has pioneered the magazine’s innovative use of unconventional storytelling and information presentation, working with visionaries from Rem Koolhaas to Will Wright to James Cameron on award-winning special issues.

Goetz is also the author of theThe Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine,and he writes frequently for Wired on the confluence of medicine, health and technology. Goetz’s 2010 talk at TEDMED on redesigning healthcare was featured as a TED Talk in 2011, and he has served as co-curator for the TEDx Silicon Valley conference, with a theme of Living By Numbers.

Goetz studied English at Bates College. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a master of arts degree in American literature, and he holds a master of public health degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. A full biography is available upon request.

About Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM)
The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (www.adobemuseum.com) is a one-of-a-kind online museum and interactive venue designed to showcase and preserve groundbreaking digital media works and provide a forum for expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society. The AMDM is open 24/7, 365 days a year, and is free of charge. Visitors are invited to sign up for free membership.

The AMDM launched in October 2010 with inaugural exhibition, The Valley, a specially commissioned work from renowned American artist Tony Oursler. The second program, an interactive lecture by John Maeda entitled Atoms + Bits = the neue Craft, launched in March 2011. Following the fall exhibitions, upcoming programming includes a CIR program by filmmaker Shari Frilot, curator of the Sundance Film Festival New Frontier program, launching in early 2012. Exhibitions are curated by leaders in art, technology and media, changing regularly throughout the year. A permanent exhibition archive remains indefinitely accessible at www.adobemuseum.com.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
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