Blue Note

Tomorrow's Art, Today

Being about as far from a modern expert as any human being could possibly get, it's rare that I write about forms of entertainment other than the kind that's performed using musical instruments. But the Santa Fe Art Institute's upcoming installation, The Domino Effect: natural influence over technology seems so potentially groundbreaking—and with enough of a musical component to ease my fear of writing about largely uncharted artistic territory—that I just can't resist making a go of it.

From a creative standpoint, art doesn't get more mind-bending than that which is to be included in The Domino Effect, a multimedia smorgasbord of technologically enhanced and advanced artwork that knows no bounds. For what we might perceive to be the outer limits of the coalescence of technologic advance and the human desire to create in a hands-on sense will likely be last week's news at an increasingly rapid pace.

The works on display are intended to exemplify an actual domino effect, from the “primitive” to the cutting-edge—from two-dimensional works on paper to three-dimensional moving images and futuresounds.

Artists exhibiting as part of The Domino Effect include Michael Fakesh and Chris De Luca of the electronic music duo Funkstorung (who will premiere three new video works), Keep Adding, Phoenix Perry, GreyscaleNet, Steve Mason and many others, as well as a handful of special guests. Also featured as part of the exhibit will be electronic music pioneer Richard Devine, whose music is so dense that it's been described as “funk for robots.” Indeed, the 25-year-old former skater kid from Atlanta, has mastered the machines of modern music to a nearly unapproachable degree. Devine, who has remixed the work of electronicists Aphex Twin , Slicker and Phoenicia to name just a few, will open the artists reception on Friday, April 30, with a live performance that promises to send you reeling and get you thinking about what the future holds for art and music as we understand it today.