“OXO (2018)” by JODI at Harvard Art Museums

Wed, Feb 7 - Mon, Apr 23  2018

From February 7 through April 23, The Harvard Art Museums present a new installation by JODI, the pioneering artist collective formed in 1994 by Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans. One of the most influential artist duos working in the age of the Internet, JODI has produced a new project, OXO (2018), for the Lightbox Gallery, a collaborative space for digital projects on the museums’ uppermost level.

About the installation

Based on the game tic-tac-toe, OXO is an interactive multichannel installation influenced by early computer games, including Noughts and Crosses or OXO, a game built in 1952 by Alexander S. Douglas. JODI’s installation responds to this early history of computing, war games, and artificial intelligence, thinking through the game tic-tac-toe as an important cultural artifact. Visit the Lightbox Gallery to play OXO throughout the installation.

The installation is organized by Mary Schneider Enriquez, Houghton Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Chris Molinski, Associate Research Curator for Digital Initiatives, at the Harvard Art Museums.

Presented in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today (February 7–May 20, 2018), which explores the extensive effects of the Internet on artistic practice and contemporary culture. Art in the Age of the Internet is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, and Jeffrey De Blois, Curatorial Associate, at the ICA. Learn more at aiai.icaboston.org.

JODI: OXO at the Harvard Art Museums is supported in part by a grant from The Creative Industries Fund NL.

About JODI

Jodi, or jodi.org, is a collective of two internet artists: Joan Heemskerk (Bogotá) and Dirk Paesmans (Caracas). Their background is in photography and video art; since the mid-1990s they started to create original artworks for the World Wide Web. A few years later, they also turned to software art and artistic computer game modification. Since 2002, they have been in what has been called their “Screen Grab” period, making video works by recording the computer monitor’s output while working, playing video games, or coding.