GONE are the days of soulless lobbies and fusty foyers - at least where Bruntwood is concerned. The property developer is investing £250K into a dynamic media wall for the ground floor of Neo, its new ‘most evolved workspace to date.’
Resident businesses will be invited to submit digital or moving image pieces for display
Composed of 30 55” screens, the permanent digital art space will be open to the public during office hours and feature a series of regularly-changing exhibitions from both established and emerging artists.
Curated in-house and later by guest curators and Neo staff, the programme will span moving and static image, live data streams, sound and VR. There is currently an open call for submissions.
Brendan Dawes - a renowned artist and designer who explores the intersection of objects, people, technology and art - will be the first Neo exhibitor.
His work, Fermata, takes its name from the musical symbol for prolonging a note; the ideology being to capture ordinarily fleeting moments and visualise them, making them less ephemeral and more perceptible. Real-time digital inputs of data, from social media to weather reports and feeds from sensors within the building itself, will be translated into compelling abstract artworks. Once a week, Fermata will also create an image representing one week’s worth of activity in the Neo building.
Earlier this year, Dawes toured Singapore and South America as part of Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture’s Big Bang Data exhibition. His 2004 piece Cinema Redux has been housed in the permanent collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art since 2008.
Of the Neo commission, he said: “I was excited by the challenge of designing a system to visualise the creativity of such a forward-thinking and evolved workspace. As the building’s community grows and creates its social commentary, so will the art, creating a beautiful cycle of creativity.”
Neo, due to open early next year, will be a community-led workspace occupied by ‘a diverse mix of forward-thinking, creatively-minded businesses that are driving innovation and are socially and digitally connected’. Resident businesses will be invited to participate in the curation of the art space, and submit digital or moving image pieces for display.
Kate Vokes, Marketing and HR Director at Bruntwood comments: “We have a strong commitment to supporting the vibrancy of our cities of which art is an important part. Fermata will be an inspiring beautiful and apt launch of the digital art space at Neo. This will then be followed by a host of new media artworks and exhibitions from emerging and established local talent and international artists.
“We’re also delighted to have such an incredible space to showcase work from the other creative partnerships we support, including The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting with the Royal Exchange Theatre, and Manchester International Festival (MIF), plus work from the Manchester School of Art.”
Neo is set to launch early next year.
