I mean, why aren’t you looking over here?

This exhibition of artworks from the Monash University Collection considers the implications of machine-vision and seeing through the computational lens, exploring the complications of mediated sight in contexts of algorithmic production and network extraction. Ruminating on the reciprocal nature of seeing and being, the artists Nathan Gray, Matthew Griffin, Siri Hayes, Lou Hubbard, Yuji Isa and Joshua Petherick anticipate the hidden vernacular between image and language. Approaching visuality as complex layered systems, the exhibition includes significant works from the Monash University Collection and raises vexing questions pertaining to machines within the optics of game-theory conditions.

Lou Hubbard operates on confectionary eyeballs while Nathan Gray holds up an iPhone as a score for action. Matthew Griffin debates the artifice of representation while Yuji Isa interweaves Japanese and Western printing techniques. Siri Hayes freezes a screen grab of an Instagram image and Joshua Petherick initiates a flatbed scanner in conversation with an iPhone. Raising more questions than they answer, the works encourage engagements with technological objects as mediums for visual production and consumption, and as modes of seeing through the computational lens.

Curated by Angela Liang, Monash University graduate and recipient of a 2022 MUMA/BAHC Curatorial Training Program placement. Supported by Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA and Monash Art Design and Architecture, this award supports a paid internship at MUMA for a student graduating from the Bachelor of Art History and Curating.

^{Image: Lou Hubbard, EYE OPS 1-5 2013, video still, Monash University Collection}