Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology is Indistinguishable From Magic – An Exhibition by Janos Stone

Opening TONIGHT!!!
6-8pm Dumbo Arts Center, 30 Washington St., Brooklyn, NY

Janos Stone will install a monumental sculpture of immense scale — bisecting the entirety of Dumbo Arts Center on a diagonal.

Made of 112 3’x3’ gypsum board polyhedra, the sculpture, at first sight, reads as a hugely enlarged image of a reclining skeleton. Printed on the gypsum "MeCube” tiles are more than 550 Youtube and Vimeo stills of night skies from around the world, acting like the pixels that form the image of the skeleton. The entire installation measures 11.5'x1’x82'.

“Digital visual language begins with the pixel,” says Stone. “This tiny polyhedron is the primary structure of digital images and allows us to see and connect with each other in the virtual world. When this contact occurs through the digital fourth wall, we bring in aspects of ourselves, exchanging atoms for pixels. This connectivity creates avatars, extensions of our actual world persona who act as our ambassadors inside the virtual world.”

This constant travel across the actual and virtual border reinforces this fact: pixels and atoms are arguably one-and-the-same as we are all made of, and interact with, these fundamental building blocks. When the viewers engage with this piece, by stepping in closer or further away, they move in and out of micro and macro universes. They begin to sense our deep connectedness with the analog, or natural, and the digital world.

The title of the installation refers to Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law. A science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, Clarke formulated the Third Law to explain the source of our amazement as our limitation, rather than the impossibility of technology.

Originally curated by Corinne Erni to take place at the Hungarian Cultural Center, the project was canceled at the last minute due to political upheaval in Hungary. DAC and Two Trees are proud to champion the creation of this ambitious art and are excited to present the installation at DAC’s space at 30 Washington Street.