Custom Effect
Eileen Isagon Skyers & Christina Humphreys
Opening Night: Saturday, August 29, 2015 6 - 9pm
Tamagotchi hit the US market in 1997, and proceeded to produce revenues of over $160 million in the following year. The simple notion of simulating pet care–of generating a lifelike form that users interact with–was creator Yokoi Akihiro’s sole aim. Portability was tantamount to intimacy. That is to say, portability would distinctly extend the user’s personal access and attachment to the device across space and time. The personal connection that users developed with this smooth, handheld egg remains one of the earlier instances of a technology object deeply reorienting space, body, and affection. While it is only toy, the speculative potential behind Tamagotchi: the potential to reframe and transcend ordinary life, via the screen, is still embedded in our sense of connectedness to people and devices today. Custom Effect transfers content across both digital and physical expanses in an effort to examine screens and their peripheral accessories as objects of devotion, dispersion, and fractal temporalities. Through various media like lenticular prints, readymades and video and web transmission, these works underscore the immediate possibility of artifacts.
Custom Effect from Surplus Space on Vimeo.
Custom Effect is a long distance collaboration between artists Christina Humphreys (FL) and Eileen Isagon Skyers (OR). Each space will be curated to include collaborations and artworks from each artist. The opening receptions are free and open to the public and will occur on Saturday, August 29 at Surplus Space in Portland, Oregon from 6-9, pm PST and QUAID Gallery in Tampa, Florida from 7-10 pm EST. The exhibitions will run from August 29, through September 18, 2015. QUAID is open every Wednesday from 7-10pm and by appointment. Surplus Space is open Saturdays & Sundays from 12-6pm. Classes and groups are encouraged and welcomed. About QUAID: Located at 4636 N. Florida Ave in South Seminole Heights, QUAID is an artist-run project space in partnership with TEMPUS PROJECTS. The artists who run QUAID are members of the Tampa Drawers Sketch Gang. Since March of 2013 this group of eight Tampa artists has met weekly to collaborate and draw. The Tampa Drawers Sketch Gang has been organizing exhibitions at QUAID since January 2014, including solo exhibitions of its members and various other group shows and events. |
Christina Humphreys is an artist currently living and working in Tampa, Fl. Interested in the gray area between conscious and unconscious space, Humphreys investigates areas of careless observation and unquestioned experience. User error, process dysfunction and material distortion become aids in combating visual complacency, presenting objects and images of ambiguous form and misleading subject matter that challenge the viewer’s understanding of their own perceptual awareness. Eileen Isagon Skyers has worked in contemporary art and non-profit arts organizations including the USF Contemporary Art Museum (Tampa, FL), The Wassaic Project (Brooklyn, NY), and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, OR). Her moving-image work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Littman Gallery (Portland, OR), Spielberg Theatre (LA), the International Streaming Festival for Audiovisual Art (The Hague, NL) and Superchief Gallery (NY, NY) among others. She holds a BA in Philosophy and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida, Tampa, FL and an MA in Critical Theory and Creative Research at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR. |