On Exactitude In Science
Alan Butler
Since 2010, Cork Film Festival and National Sculpture Factory have developed a unique and fruitful partnership, creating a large platform for artists to connect with a wider public, and to explore the interconnection between film and visual arts through collaboration.
On Exactitude in Science
Alan Butler’s installation On Exactitude in Science (2017), presented on two screens, comprises Godfrey Reggio’s motion picture Koyaanisqatsi (1983) in synchronicity with Butler’s shot-for-shot remake Koyaanisgtav (2017), which he has transposed into a new form using the virtual worlds within the Grand Theft Auto video game series. Reggio’s work was chosen by Butler as a paragon of the most popular visual medium of the 20th century: film. The original motion picture does not follow a formal screenplay as such; instead it embodies a poetic, pictorial mode of documentary filmmaking.
Originally commissioned by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, On Exactitude in Science takes its name from the Jorge Luis Borges short story, Del rigor en la ciencia (1946), which describes an ancient, fictional civilization that creates a 1:1 scale map of its territory.
Alan Butler’s work explores material and philosophical ideas about the functions of imagery and meaning in technologically mediated realities. Recent solo exhibitions include The Need To Argue In The Master’s Language, Visual Carlow, Ireland (2018); Down and Out in Los Santos, Malmö Fotobiennal, Sweden (2017); and HELIOSYNTH, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin (2017). His work is in the collections of IMMA, The Office of Public Works and Trinity College Dublin. He is represented by Green On Red Gallery, Ireland.
Alan Butler Artist Talk: ‘In-Game Photography and Cinema’
A discussion on his recent work ‘On Exactitude in Science’ screened at the National Sculpture Factory as part of the 63rd Cork Film Festival 2018 as well as his approach to working with new technologies and the future for art making in a digital age
Alan Butler’s work explores material and philosophical ideas about the functions of imagery and meaning in technologically mediated realities. His subject often ties together the cultural dogma that underpins visual languages, with algorithmic modes of being in western capitalist societies. He received his MFA from LaSalle College of the Arts, Singapore (2009). and BA in Fine Art from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2004).
Followed by a Q+A session with Senior Programmer at the Cork Film Festival – Don O’Mahony.
Image Credits: On Exactitude in Science by Alan Butler (2017), Two-screen HD video, 5.1 audio. Artist Proof, Edition of 5 + 1 A.P., courtesy of the artist. Koyaanisqatsi (© IRE 1983, All Rights Reserved) courtesy of Godfrey Reggio and the Institute for Regional Education.