Lilla LoCurto & Bill Outcault
Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault are a collaborative artist team who explore the physical and psychological frailties of the human condition, through the use of new ways of imaging the body and its movement.
Intro:
LoCurto and Outcault have been a collaborative artist team since 1991. Using digital prints, video, photography, and other mixed media, the duo create series and installations that question our perceptions of space, time, bodily form, and daily events in a world of computer technology. Pioneers in the field of art using technology, their work spans a decades digital experimentation.
Selected AI Artworks:
cat's cradle is an AI-powered interactive sculpture that responds to viewers and their movement in real-time. LoCurto and Outcault reconstituted some of the ideology behind a well known 1844 sculpture, Hiram Powers’ The Greek Slave. The artists are interested in provoking the public through their interaction with an atypical, imperfect woman, bound in her environment and unable to escape. For this installation one of the artists, Lilla LoCurto, was three-dimensionally scanned in a position similar to Powers’ statue and then developed into a 3D printed marionette the approximate height of the statue. In contrast to the 19th century issue of African slavery, this marionette reflects on contemporary gender injustice as well as age bias, her less-than-perfect nudity contrasting with the idealized beauty of the original statue.
The Making of Cat’s Cradle:
cat's cradle operates using motors controlled by a micro-controller and a computer. Using facial recognition, cameras detect the age and gender of visitors in the gallery, allowing the marionette to engage with viewers in response to their movements. These responses are subtle, quiet and have a quality of stillness that relates to the original statue. The software also has a simple artificial intelligence which uses curious learning agents to bring the marionette one step closer towards a conscious machine. Psychologically, this marionette, an intelligent machine provoking a mute yet human-like dialogue with viewers, bridges a gap between a static statue, such as The Greek Slave, and an interactive experience, allowing the marionette and the viewer to engage in unpredictable ways as well as provoking a dialogue on contemporary issues.
Lilla LoCurto’s Background:
1978 M.F.A. Sculpture, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois
1975 Accademia di Belle Arti, Sculpture & Drawing, Rome, Italy
1973 B.F.A. Sculpture, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Bill Outcault’s Background:
1978 M.F.A. Sculpture - Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois
1976 B.F.A. Sculpture and Metalsmithing - Mankato State University, Mankato, Minnesota
Outcault and LoCurto’s Grants, Awards & Residencies:
2015 Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Perceiving Systems, Tübingen, Germany
2014 Charlotte Research Institute grant for motion capture and gesture research
2013-14 University of North Carolina Charlotte, Colleges of Computing and Informatics and Art and Architecture, artist in residence
2013 University of North Carolina Research Grant
2013 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
2012 Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Perceiving Systems, Tübingen, Germany
2010 Wexner Center for the Arts, Art and Technology residency, Columbus, Ohio, ACCAD (Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design), Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
2005 Richard M. Ross Museum, Ohio Wesleyan University, residency, Delaware, Ohio
2003 Wexner Center for the Arts, Art and Technology residency, Columbus, Ohio
2002 Yale University, School of Architecture, New Haven, CT, Cartography in the Age of Digital Media, symposium
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2019 Much Madness is divinest Sense, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
2016 the willful marionette, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
2009 markingtime, Sloan Fine Art, New York, NY
2007 Joseph Gross Gallery, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
2006 [un] moving pictures, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY
2004 Thinskinned, Carleton College Art Gallery, Northfield, MN
2002 selfportrait.map, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, Illinois, traveled to Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA & University Art Museum, California State Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault’s Group Exhibitions:
2016 Real-fake.org.2.0, Bronx Art Space, Bronx, NY
2015 Objects to be Contemplated, Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL
2013 Peekskill Projects V, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY
2012 Reading Objects 2011, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, New Platz, N
2012 Seeing Ourselves, Center of Photography and the Moving Image (MUSEcpmi), NY, NY
2010 Odd Bodies: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Weatherspoon Art Mus., Greensboro, NC
2010 TRAIT, Archer Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA
2009 The Body Navigation, Loft Project “Etazhi”, St. Petersburg, Russia
2009 Visions in New York City, Macy Art Gallery, Columbia University, NY, NY
Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault’s Publications:
2019 Much Madness is Divinest Sense, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
2011 Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, “Reading Objects 2011”, SUNY Press
2010 Denis Wood, Rethinking the Power of Maps, The Guilford Press, New York, Page 227
2009 Maurizio Pellegrin, “Visions in New York City”, The Myers Foundations, Columbia University, Pages 94-5.
2009 Katharine Harmon, The Map As Art, Princeton Architectural Press, NY, Pages 127-8.
2008 Robin Kelsey and Blake Stimson, Editors, The Meaning of Photography, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Pages 191-3.
2008 Frances K. Pohl, Framing America, Thames and Hudson, NY, NY, pages 10, 559-61
Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault’s Speaking Engagements:
2019 International Conference on Computational Creativity, UNCCharlotte, NC, June
2016 Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, July
2016 LISA, Leaders in Software and Art, New York, NY January
2016 Podcast, Leonardo Creative Disturbance, January
2015 Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Perceiving Systems, Tubingen, Germany, September
2015 NY LASER, Leonardo Education and Art Forum, New York, NY, March
2013 University of North Carolina Charlotte, College of Art and Architecture, November
2013 Center for Design Innovation, Winston-Salem, NC, October
2012 Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Perceiving Systems, Tubingen, Germany, December
Public Collections:
The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY
Richard M. Ross Art Museum, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Carnation Corporation, Los Angeles, CA
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, CA
Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, CA
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
Learn More About Lilla LoCurto & Bill Outcault:
Bio on Anti-Utopias