Adam Gibney - Cybernetic Reorientations of Being: NOVA

I have been thinking
I have been thinking about information
I have been thinking about information and energy

An array of softly sighing, whirring objects sit in a neat grid on the gallery floor. Drawing power from the weak winter sun through a set of solar panels placed on the roof of Mermaid Arts Centre, these units form a kind of semi-sentient being responding to the surrounding environment.

Conceived by artist Adam Gibney, this new commission explores self-replicating systems. A touchstone is research in the context of rapidly expanding AI systems, referencing Cambridge mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life (1971), a grid of cells that can thrive or die depending on a set of rules imposed by the player. A cellular automata of sorts, as a kind of artificial intelligence it uses very simple rules to replicate early life systems.

The prospect of fully autonomous machines poses questions and conundrums in common the philosophical theory humanist dualism, a predominantly Western understanding that posits a separation between the mind and the body, the 'I' and the 'other'. This notion of a separated thinking is proposed as existing in both computers and human bodies.

Gibney explains, “My interest lies in re-orienting notions of intelligence, both artificial and natural, beyond these human-centric and dualistic understandings, towards a more integrated and holistic perspective.”

Through a practice that spans electronics, coding, digital fabrication and sound to explore meanings of reality, Gibney often devises immersive installations that react and are activated through audience or environmental interaction.

In this new installation, each unit exists in an equilibrium with its peers, sharing and storing solar energy through an interconnected battery system. The units respond collectively, creating a decentralized network of intelligence, a miniature data centre, a distributed consciousness that invites us to commune with the ghost in the machine.

Biography
Adam Gibney is an interdisciplinary artist with numerous awards that include the Aileen MacKeogh Award, the Siamsa Tíre Emerging Artist Award, the IMOCA graduate residency award, and the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary award. His solo exhibitions include Can you breathe for me? (Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin, 2021 and The Dock, 2022), Projective Verse 9: Deep Breadths (Daegu Foundation of Culture, South Korea, 2017) and Euclid, I miss you…(Artbox, Dublin, 2016). Other notable exhibitions include I am sitting in a room (Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, 2022), Embracing (The Lab Gallery, Dublin 2022), Scaffold (The Bomb Factory, London, 2019), The Voyage (CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2016) and Futures (Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 2014). In 2016, Adam represented Ireland in the V Moscow Biennale for Young Art – Deep Inside.

In 2019, Adam launched his first public art project, Your Seedling Language, in St. Catherine’s School, Rush, Co. Dublin. He was commissioned to create a temporary public art project for Graft, a project curated by both the Glucksman Gallery and the National Sculpture Factory and he is currently working on a public art project for Fingal County Council.

Adam has recently completed a practice-based research master’s degree at the Technological University of Dublin. Drawing on his interdisciplinary approach to technology in fine art, interaction design, and emerging media practices, he has lectured at several universities, including the Technological University of Dublin and The University of Limerick. He is currently Assistant Lecturer in Interaction Design at The National College of Art and Design, (NCAD) where he is also course coordinator for the Professional Diploma in Digital Making.