Corpus Ex Machina
A Museum & Curatorial Studies Exhibition Series
ON VIEW: March 9 - May 22, 2022
We live in a world of constant surveillance, mapped by multiple forms of technology. Privacy as we once knew it is a thing of the past. Our bodies and lives have become data points in endless grids of behavioral information, feeding predictive algorithms which influence our choices and decisions.
Conformal Guyou L2sph(8/6)7_98, by Lilla LoCurto and William Outcault, was created in 2000 utilizing then cutting-edge scanning and mapping technologies. The resulting image is an unsettling, strange representation of the human body, disseminated across a global grid. The work represents urgent, concerning issues about the relationships between representation of the physical world, technological advancement, and perception of the human body.
In Corpus ex Machina, a two-phase Open Classroom project, Purchase College student curators introduce different frameworks through which to view Conformal Guyou L2sph(8/6)7_98, situating the work within broader art and historical narratives. The project draws connections from the time the work was created to today and demonstrates how technology has impacted nearly every aspect of our lives.
Corpus ex Machina is curated by the 404 Collective comprised of Leigh Colby, Jordan Frank, Mark Lusardi (Art History MA/M+ students), and Emily Nugent (BA/BFA 2022).
This project is made possible with support from the Purchase College Art History Department, the Roy R. Neuberger Legacy Endowment, and the Strypemonde Foundation.
A Neuberger Museum of Art Open Classroom Project
Open Classroom projects align with course material of Purchase College classes while moving beyond the scope of the traditional classroom.
M+ is a track within the Art History MA program that centers the Neuberger Museum of Art in a pedagogical model that systematically programs connections between Art History, the School of Art + Design, and the Neuberger. M+ students work with the Neuberger’s collection, producing original research, exhibitions, and public programming. They do so with an eye to learning how an arts institution functions—training in skills that will prepare them for careers in the field—and also to rethinking the social role of the arts, tying the values of humanistic learning and critical thinking to the importance of engaged citizenship. In concert with Art History faculty and the Neuberger staff, every M+ cohort will imagine what it means to make a Museum Wide Open.