Entanglement

May 5 - August 15, 2023
New Media Artspace
Baruch College
Enter via the Newman Library, 151 East 25th Street, 2nd floor

In the world of quantum physics, every particle affects the energetic state of other particles nearby. Some particles become so deeply connected that they continue to influence each other, even when separated by great distances. This relationship, known as “quantum entan- glement,” might also describe the inextricable links between artworks — even when seen alone, they can never be fully separated from the work of other artists.

The works included in the New Media Arts Capstone exhibition Entanglement forms a messy web of interdependencies, common attitudes, and influences. As nodes in a larger network, two works that appear to have nothing in common are still interconnected through their ties to other artworks in the show. The artworks and their relationships begin to resemble a rhizome — a spatial structure found in the shared root systems of some plant species, where individuals become interconnected and share resources in a decentralized, non-hierarchical system.

The artworks in Entanglement utilize a range of digital media, including 3D-rendering and game engines, video and photography, and hand-drawn and stop-motion animation. Many of the works address various “entanglements” found in the artists’ own lives, from romantic and family connections to the internal pull of past and future identities. Thus, creating a duality to the viewer’s experience. The viewer may choose to focus intimately on the tangle of subjects within each work. Or they might choose to interpret each piece based on its closest connec- tions, finding links and underlying themes shared by individual works and echoed across the entire show. Either approach will reveal the intricate pattern of affinities and relationships forged by the artists in the New Media Arts Capstone exhibition Entanglement.