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Gabriel Barcia-Colombo

@gabebc

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@c24gallery
@artemisgallerylisbon
Co-Director @itp_nyu

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What a crazy month! Thank you to everyone who came out to see “A Chorus” as part of the #midnightmoment w @tsqarts . Thanks also to the over 180 people who lived as the Chorus in the piece. I finally got around to editing a short encapsulation of the piece.
🎥🎥🎥
Thanks to @tsqarts , @ekmelesvocalensemble and @alanwinslow @drormargalit @dav1dyang and @shivaviswan for helping me get all this documentation.
🌃🌃🌃🌃🌃
#gabebc #timessquarearts taken in Times Square, New York City by @gabebc

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2 years ago

“Afterparty” is a large video art triptych featuring a crowd of fifty people scattered across a desert landscape absorbed in looping everyday rituals.

Some gamble. A man digs a hole to nowhere. Lovers ignore each other to scroll on their phones. A group burns books as nearby figures in hazmat suits quietly observe a yoga class.

The work is divided into three distinct pillars of contemporary life: knowledge, connection, and leisure. Rather than depicting a singular catastrophe, The spectacle is over, yet everyone continues performing familiar routines as though nothing has changed.

Through looping everyday behavior, Afterparty is both a warning and prophecy. How much of our humanity have we given away in exchange for technological dependency? How do algorithmic systems increasingly shape knowledge, prediction, and belief? Do people even go to parties anymore?

In the final moments of the work, everyone freezes before walking toward the camera. All fifty figures stand face to face with the viewer, as though inviting them to join the Afterparty, or perhaps to recognize they have been part of it all along.

#gabebc by @gabebc

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3 months ago

“Escalate” is a small video sculpture of an escalator with a never ending stream of people traveling somewhere unknown. I wanted to create an artwork that represents motion without progress, ritualized movement, migration and escape.

In a world where we are witnessing the collapse of systems, asynchronous reactions to crisis, algorithmic prophecy, pseudoscience, and technology as an emotional prosthetic, maybe we’re all on the never ending escalator moving upwards or downwards towards everywhere and nowhere.

This work is currently on view @c24gallery as part of my show “Business as Usual”

How do we conduct or go about our “business” or should we conduct “business” at all in our current reality?

Created with the support of @fineacts

#gabebc #videosculpture #videoart taken in C24 Gallery by @gabebc

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7 months ago

Explorers

Explorers features a silent composition of a very human scene: a crowd of people pausing to witness something captivating yet unnamed. While some Explorers stand in contemplative thought, others snap photos of the awe-inspiring subject that is intentionally left off screen. Are they sharing in something sublime, confounding, or disturbing? Is the role of these Explorers to guide us, to influence us, or to reflect on the barometers of social connection.

Undoubtably the reaction to seeing “Explorers” is for visitors to take out their own devices and snap photos of the installation, mimicking the performance taking place in the work. In a world where so many of our connections are digital or mediated by a machine how do we connect on a deep level as human beings?

Commissioned by @exploratorium
Shown here testing at @onassis.onx by @gabebc

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a month ago

1 year since I directed the video for Everybody Laughs for @davidbyrneofficial
Happy Birthday Everybody! by @gabebc

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2 months ago

Nobody leaves. Everybody goes.

ESCALATE is a video sculpture about routine, automation, and the illusion that movement always means progress.

An escalator carries everyone with the same quiet certainty regardless of where they’re going or why.

Escalate follows an endless procession of strangers moving towards somewhere unknown.

#gabebc #videosculpture #escalator by @gabebc

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3 months ago

For the past few years I’ve noticed an increasing amount of “Studies” on Instagram:

“Studies show being in love is biochemically identical to having severe obsessive compulsive disorder.”

“Studies show that women who embrace Grandma Hobbies live an extra 8 years”

“Studies show being kind increases the risk of chronic illness.” These are all “real” studies I’ve seen online.
So I decided to make a project about studies.

“Studies Show” are a Series of LED road sign sculptures that serve as a warning about a future guided by Artificial Intelligence.

Through a series of algorithmically written “Studies” about the future, climate, technology and modern living, these signs question technological dependency and examine how algorithmic systems increasingly shape knowledge, prediction, and belief.

I want to put one of these on the side of a major road so if anyone knows any roads let me know.
⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️
#gabebc #textart by @gabebc

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3 months ago

This is a big video artwork I made in San Francisco for the @exploratorium called Explorers. For the work we got over 100 people together at the @ybca to become a crowd of people pausing to witness something captivating yet unnamed.

Are the Explorers sharing in something sublime, confounding, or disturbing? Is the role of these Explorers to guide us, to influence us, or to reflect on the barometers of social connection mitigated by our mobile devices and tech distractions?

Directing 100 people at once was a huge challenge but resulted in some pretty interesting moments. At one point I shouted “Everyone take a photo of something aww inspiring to the right” but forgot to distinguish which “right.” This resulted in a tangled mess of phones and people, like an octopus with 200 hundred arms trying to take selfies.

Undoubtably the reaction to seeing Explorers is for visitors to take out their own devices and snap photos of the installation, mimicking the performance taking place in the work. The work creates a connection between viewer and the artwork, but also questions the fragility of this connection. In a world where so many of our connections are digital or mediated by a machine, how do we connect on a deep level as human beings?

© The Exploratorium
#gabebc taken in Exploratorium by @gabebc

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4 months ago

In 2014 | pitched to create the first digital artwork for the Fulton Center in Lower Manhattan with @mtaartsdesign . I proposed an idea of 52 portraits of New Yorkers shot in super slow motion doing all the things that make New York a great city. I wanted to call it “New York Minute” based on the saying that Johnny Carson once said means the interval of time between an NYC traffic light turning green and the person behind you honking their horn.

This was the first work I made with an open call to the public to be in a video artwork. We got a sword swallower from Coney Island, dancers from the MET Opera, a Chef from the show Top Chef, a puppeteer, famous artists, bartenders, drag queens, tour guides and even someone who was definitely in the mob. I filmed the entire thing in a small theater at the Tisch building on Broadway over two weekends with the help of @todernst and @snackcabinet

When I filmed the work, the Fulton center was still under construction and I got to tour this giant empty transit hub ahead of its opening with the MTA. It felt like visiting the inside of an Egyptian pyramid while it was under construction.

New York Minute was really fun to make but now looking back on the work I see it as this very particular time capsule. Nobody in the footage is using phones, life seemed slower (and not just because the works was filmed at 5000fps) Also it’s sad to see how many people that were in the piece have passed away 12 years later.
Sometimes you’re sitting at the traffic light waiting and then flash forward and the person behind you is honking their horn.

#gabebc #videoart #publicart #newyorkminute taken in Fulton Center by @gabebc

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6 months ago

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6 months ago

STREAM is a large video work I made for @150mediastream . The work features over a hundred folks in Chicago in a never ending stream of humanity.

This site specific video artwork was actually shot in that very lobby where it was displayed with a little green screen and a whole ton of natural light. As I shot it, we had a live score accompanying the piece by @naesynthpop which you can hear if you unmute.

This is a busy office building but you rarely get to connect with the people inside. I wanted to feature the security guards, janitors, bankers, tourists, restaurant workers all on the same giant screen in the lobby. All people who make up the energy that fuels the Chicago skyline.

Curated by @yugezhou
Drifting Lull Music by NÆ @naesynthpop
#publicart #gabebc #150mediastream #videoart taken in 150 North Riverside by @gabebc

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7 months ago

BUSINESS AS USUAL opens @c24gallery March 5 6-8pm

I’ve been working on this show for years. It’s the culmination of 7 video shoots featuring over 100 people and many thoughts I’ve been thinking about crowds, technology, misinformation and modern life. Come check it out! Opening Thursday March 5 6-8pm by @gabebc

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7 months ago