Carson Center presents guest artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
calendar icon29 Oct 2021
Lincoln, Neb.—The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts will present two events with guest artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy Nov. 11-12. Their visit is a collaboration between the Carson Center and Fiendish Plots.
The McCoys will present a workshop/talk titled “NFT’s and the Long History of Artist-Made Tools” on Thursday, Nov. 11 from 2:15-3:30 p.m. in the Carson Center, which is located at 13th and Q sts. During this workshop, participants will learn about NFTs from the artist who minted the very first, titled “Quantum,” in 2014.
“This code-driven work presents an ongoing, abstract, cycle of birth, death and rebirth. It tells this story through color, line and movement,” said Kevin McCoy. “In 2014, I had an idea to use blockchain technology to create indelible provenance and ownership of digital images of this kind. ‘Quantum’ was the first ever to be recorded in this way.”
They will also present an artist talk during the Carson Center’s IGNITE colloquium titled “Inhabiting the World (we made)” on Friday, Nov. 12 from 12:30-1:50 p.m. at the Carson Center. The lecture is also accessible via Zoom at https://go.unl.edu/ignitefall2021.
Both events are free and open to the public.
In addition, an exhibition of their work titled “Jennifer and Kevin McCoy: Lincoln2Lincoln” will be on display from Nov. 12-Dec. 12 at Fiendish Plots, located at 2130 Magnum Circle in Lincoln. An opening reception will be held Friday, Nov. 12 from 6-9 p.m. at the gallery. The McCoys link two American Lincolns—the tunnel in New York City and the city of Lincoln—with a series of drawings marking each place, as well as the cities in between them geographically.
The McCoys are media artists whose works extends from film and video to installation and generative software. Their work often reconfigures viewing conventions to tease out the gap between representation and lived experience. To this end, they build active systems for art creation and viewing.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Jennifer and Kevin McCoy to Lincoln to present these workshops and talks and to visit with our Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts faculty and students in their studios,” said Megan Elliott, founding director of the Carson Center. “NFTs are having a moment, and everyone has questions about it—what is it? How do I make it? How do I make money with NFTs? Should I buy an NFT? We have the opportunity to get these questions answered and more from one of the groundbreakers, Kevin McCoy.”
Their early projects included a series of sculptures that presented databases of narrative television clips filtered into categorical frameworks. Their live installations depend on software that manipulates images as they are presented. These miniature film sets deploy live cameras to restructure filmed sequences in real time. In their work, technology serves as a mediator between the human and the world, and as an active force that not only shapes its material, but it reframes the entire project of what we choose to see. Their recent work includes generative software that uses blockchain technology to create long form ecosystems for images to change and evolve.
Their work has been widely exhibited in the U.S. and internationally with exhibitions that include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, BFI (British Film Institute) Southbank in London, pkm Gallery in Beijing and The Sundance Film Festival. Their work can be seen in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the 21C Museum and the Speed Museum.
They received a Creative Capital award in 2003, the Wired Rave Award for Art in 2005, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011 and a Headlands Alumni Award in 2014.
To see their work, visit www.mccoyspace.com.