John-Robin Bold is an artist and composer who works within the fields of experimental electronic music, internet art, and video art. He has released music on labels such as Mille Plateaux and mappa, and presents his work internationally. Bold lives and works in Manchester, UK.
📸 by @the_real_marizu
#ambient #abstract #glitch #soundscape #experimentalmusic
What does it mean to make art in the machine? As our consciousness evolves in networks and on platforms, our subjectivity is changing in profound yet unexpected ways. If temporal discontinuity is a feature of our post-internet state of mind, this certainly holds true for the history of internet-inspired art itself.
Recent works by often anonymous, post-millennial artists appear to think on, as much as about, the internet. These works, and their emergent AI successors, share many apparent aesthetic features. Do they also impose an emotional, social, or political sensibility on their creators?
I, Internet
Making Art in the Machine
📅 31 January, 2-6pm
🎟️ https://verdur.in/event/i-internet/
— link-in-bio
With contributions by @helen.v.rollins , @johnrobinbold , and Tony D Sampson.
Plus screenings of works by @chrisqboyd , Thomson & Craighead @jonandali , @_neuedeutschekunst , @evaandfrancomattes , George Barber, @just_renee_nee , and others.
📽️ Chris Boyd, YuNo Disface A Thousand Frames.
Water (Audio Library of a Viewable World #18), 2025, by John-Robin Bold @johnrobinbold ,
interactive YouTube video
‘Water’ is a moving image which can be explored with YouTube’s zoom function. Beneath a synthetic water surface, human figures are in a state of continuous transformation, traversing a wide array of identities, profiles and trends. The setting shows an undead crowd scene of online society in which a myriad of details can be spotted through zooming-in, just like going up close to a hidden-object painting. (find Link in Bio)
'Water' is exhibitied as part of the Nonference organized by @force_inc_music_works and Synnika until January 17.
Photos by @pictureandform
Coming up at Verdurin: I, Internet
What does it mean to make art in the machine?
As our consciousness evolves in networks and on platforms, our subjectivity is changing in profound yet unexpected ways. If temporal discontinuity is a feature of our post-internet state of mind, this certainly holds true for the history of internet-inspired art itself.
Recent works by often anonymous, post-millennial artists appear to think on, as much as about, the internet. These works, and their emergent AI successors, share many apparent aesthetic features. Do they also impose an emotional, social, or political sensibility on their creators?
📅 31 January, 2-6pm
📍 Verdurin, Hoxton
🎟️ https://verdur.in/event/i-internet/
🔗 link-in-bio
With contributions by @helen.v.rollins@johnrobinbold and Tony D Sampson, plus screenings of works by @milo_creese , @chrisqboyd , Thomson & Craighead @jonandali , @evaandfrancomattes , and others.
'Animals' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #3)
Animal selfie filters, face-swapping with your dog, heartwarming animal stories and narcissistic yet adorable cats with a will to power. What does such content tell us about the relationship between the shifting human-digital-animal today?
/watch?v=d86UbOtza3I / Link in bio
'Office' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #13)
A meditation on the neo-feudal rebellion of the YouTube shooter.
'On April 3 2018, the YouTuber Nasim Aghdam killed herself after wounding three people with a gun in the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, US. She was reported to be blaming YouTube for censoring and demonetising her videos that were strongly propagating veganism and animal rights.
Officium is a Latin word with various meanings, including "service", "(sense of) duty", "courtesy", "ceremony" and the like.'
Link in bio / /watch?v=q027oelpbZo
'Doors' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #6)
/watch?v=Neev8HOS2FY / Link in bio
YouTube video with 5 selectable subtitles
(YouTube) video is shown as a voyeuristic medium, invoked through the image of the door. Five types of doors embody different degrees of transparency, privacy, separation and sanctity. Each door has its own inaudible dialogue which the viewer can select to read as subtitle.
'Alarms' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #1)
/watch?v=Zu7gDgRSfhg&list=PLkrmEz14GzNNo_jmf_dmmzs-xiZfPVjji&index=2 / Link in bio
The first exploration of subtitles in this series and first video published in 2023, 'Alarms' is filled with short flashing subtitles showing live ticker news items on Covid and the war in Ukraine. The video shows two YouTube buffer signs rotating at different speeds and the sound is made from one of YouTube audio library's alarm samples phasing with itself.
From the video description:
"During the early days of the pandemic I’ve noticed a change on the news website I had been consulting somewhat regularly. It had a feature called live-ticker, what others call live feed, that was usually activated for unusual events: Terror attacks, world cup matches, natural disasters. For a couple hours, the live-ticker’s real-time updates helped to transfigure the occurrence into a spectacle moment of exception.
At the end of 2019 I noticed the first live-ticker on my news site that laster longer than a day, when the US assassination of a high ranking Iranian figure caused wide-ranging fear of a third world war. Two days later the feed ended. The news moved on and the world followed. Once the Corona live-ticker started in early 2020, it never went away until it was finally replaced by one reporting on the Ukraine war in early 2022. It’s still running live now. The spread of live news did not simply mean more but rather less reliable information. The Daily Numbers and ever-changing rules (as if it was a child’s game open to continuous reinventions…) eroded any basis for stable assumptions as each day was subjected to the uncertainty of real-time updates. Being regularly if not constantly “informed” appeared to me as the condition for evading the virus, evading to be an accidental law-breaker and evading total isolation from society."
... etc in the video
'Transport' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #17)
/watch?v=Qm2T9Yr_834&list=PLkrmEz14GzNNa4pfMaP6rKGH-yzTxp9yv / link in bio
Rapid images blending a classic train ride out-of-the-window shot and scrolling through instagram. The subtitles stay the same throughout the video to contrast the flow of images.
SPORT (Audio Library of a Viewable World #15)
/shorts/e2x_pct6ExA?si=-2teKtXDcwlAftwN / Link in bio
YouTube short on the everyday micro-fascism of JD Sports, trap drill, universal roadman nihilism & co
'Emergency' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #7)
https://youtu.be/wMCmrxK33HQ?si=Cru4aMq6tq_XlLQu / Link in bio
One disaster video follows another interrupted by YouTube's Up Next In 5 4 3 2 1... Images of collapse, images collapse, representation breaks down, representation breaks reality.
'Cartoon' (Audio Library of a Viewable World #4)
Interactive YouTube video
/watch?v=Rxrky7UCR6g / Link in bio
switch subtitles on & press + and - for changing their size. **Works only on computers**
Cartoon turns subtitles into visuals. Large blocks of text appear in an interwoven font which can be zoomed in and out of using the + and - keys. The hyperactive samples similarly form an opaque and ever shifting avalanche of sound and signifiers.
Part of a series of interactive YouTube videos. View more on my channel and subscribe to see new ones.
Now on view at @thewrong.biennale 'VerbivocoVirtual' curated by @fabiofondotcom
