Bois-tiges de fer, 1964, is a Masonite board measuring over five feet wide and painted with vertical black lines, in front of which are hung thin steel wires bent into varying arcs. As the viewer passes in front of the work, the visual interference between the actual and painted lines creates a dizzying optical confusion. In the 1960s, this kind of “activation” of the viewer’s body using nontraditional materials was understood by some as a political act, insofar as it rejected the bourgeois model of art as expensive objects to be passively consumed.
In METASOTO, Reas uses live code that we experience via our browsers to reimagine Soto’s sculpture as a dynamic composition of black and white intersecting lines. The black lines remain static, while the white lines move over them in ways that can make the black lines appear to be animated. Clicking on the image reveals a new pattern (although reloading the work will begin the same cycle over again), and each edition of the work presents an entirely different set of configurations. While Reas’s work reiterates Soto’s embrace of technology to activate the viewer, it also invites us to consider what it means for the viewer to activate technology—or even create their own digital systems."> Bois-tiges de fer, 1964, is a Masonite board measuring over five feet wide and painted with vertical black lines, in front of which are hung thin steel wires bent into varying arcs. As the viewer passes in front of the work, the visual interference between the actual and painted lines creates a dizzying optical confusion. In the 1960s, this kind of “activation” of the viewer’s body using nontraditional materials was understood by some as a political act, insofar as it rejected the bourgeois model of art as expensive objects to be passively consumed.
In METASOTO, Reas uses live code that we experience via our browsers to reimagine Soto’s sculpture as a dynamic composition of black and white intersecting lines. The black lines remain static, while the white lines move over them in ways that can make the black lines appear to be animated. Clicking on the image reveals a new pattern (although reloading the work will begin the same cycle over again), and each edition of the work presents an entirely different set of configurations. While Reas’s work reiterates Soto’s embrace of technology to activate the viewer, it also invites us to consider what it means for the viewer to activate technology—or even create their own digital systems."> Bois-tiges de fer, 1964, is a Masonite board measuring over five feet wide and painted with vertical black lines, in front of which are hung thin steel wires bent into varying arcs. As the viewer passes in front of the work, the visual interference between the actual and painted lines creates a dizzying optical confusion. In the 1960s, this kind of “activation” of the viewer’s body using nontraditional materials was understood by some as a political act, insofar as it rejected the bourgeois model of art as expensive objects to be passively consumed.
In METASOTO, Reas uses live code that we experience via our browsers to reimagine Soto’s sculpture as a dynamic composition of black and white intersecting lines. The black lines remain static, while the white lines move over them in ways that can make the black lines appear to be animated. Clicking on the image reveals a new pattern (although reloading the work will begin the same cycle over again), and each edition of the work presents an entirely different set of configurations. While Reas’s work reiterates Soto’s embrace of technology to activate the viewer, it also invites us to consider what it means for the viewer to activate technology—or even create their own digital systems.">