Art Made of Electronics and LED Lights

Jim Campbell moved to Silicon Valley in the late seventies to design computer chips. But on the weekends, he moonlighted as an artist, manipulating technology to create electronic art. 

"I've always had kind of a split personality," Campbell said. "I've had the nerd side which goes one way, and then the frustrated nerd side that kind of needs to create or needs to expand."

The Museum of the Moving Imagine in Queens opened Campbell's survey exhibition titled "Jim Campbell: Rhythms of Perception" Friday, his first solo museum show in New York. The show includes three decades of work, from experimental film to large-scale installations. 

The exhibition features many of his best-known pieces that experiment with low-resolution imagery. In Home Movies, 1040-1, Campbell projects his own childhood home videos on a large-scale grid of LED lights, abstracting the images.

"The low resolution eliminates the details in peoples' faces and things, so the home movies become kind of universal," Campbell said. "It could be your home movie there."

The rarely shown Last Day in the Beginning of March is also on display. The room-size installation involves suspended light bulbs and a soundscape Campbell said recreates the last day of his brother's life. 

"It's fairly abstract and kind of expressionist," Cambell said. "But once you read the labels and you walk around, it kind of gradually comes together. It's a work that's really more about feeling it than looking at it. It's more about feeling the space."

Also on display is Exploded View (Commuters), a work that includes footage from Grand Central Station the museum originally exhibited in 2011.

The exhibition coincides with a show now on view featuring Campbell's new work at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Chelsea. Campbell will also collaborate this week with the Alonzo King LINES Ballet for Constellation, a performance that features a light sphere installation synchronized with the dancers' movements.

A computer engineer-turned-artist is having his first solo museum exhibit in New York.

Campbell moved to Silicon Valley in the late seventies to design computer chips. But on the weekends, he moonlighted as an artist, manipulating technology to create electronic art. "I've always had kind of a split personality," Campbell said. "I've had the nerd side which goes one way, and then the frustrated nerd side that kind of needs to create or needs to expand."

The exhibition is his first solo museum show in New York. It includes three decades of work, from experimental film to large-scale installations.

 

The exhibition features many of his best-known pieces that experiment with low-resolution imagery. In Home Movies, 1040-1, Campbell projects his own childhood home videos on a large-scale grid of LED lights, abstracting the images. "The low resolution eliminates the details in peoples' faces and things, so the home movies become kind of universal," Campbell said. "It could be your home movie there."

The rarely shown Last Day in the Beginning of March is also on display. The room-size installation involves suspended light bulbs and a soundscape Campbell said recreates the last day of his brother's life.

 

"It's fairly abstract and kind of expressionist," Cambell said. "But once you read the labels and you walk around, it kind of gradually comes together. It's a work that's really more about feeling it than looking at it. It's more about feeling the space."

Also on view is Exploded View (Commuters), a work including footage from Grand Central Station.