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Gary Simmons: Wake for Artists' Web Projects

Launched February 16, 2000

On February 16, 2000, Gary Simmons will launch a project for the world wide web, entitled Wake, the twelfth in Dia's series of artists' projects for the web. The address for the project will be http://www.diacenter.org/simmons.

For Wake, his first project for the web, Gary Simmons has photographed empty ballrooms and other dance spaces redolent of an earlier era. As the viewer moves the mouse over the screen, image fragments appear then quickly fade, making it impossible to view any of his nine haunting scenes in its entirety and at one time. Mediated by a soundtrack comprised of the humming of old but well-known songs that are still popular favorites, these sites seem generated as much by involuntary memory as by technical intervention. As with Simmons' earlier work, including his chalk drawings and more recently his photographs of pedagogical spaces, absence and the ephemeral are as palpably charged as what is present and lasting.

Funding for Dia's series of artists' projects for the web has been provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Previous projects which can still be visited on Dia's website include Francis Alÿs' The Thief, Arturo Herrera's Almost Home, Diller + Scofidio's Refresh, Kristin Lucas's Between a Rock and a Hard Drive, Claude Closky's Do you want love or lust?, Tim Rollins and K.O.S.'s Prometheus Bound, Cheryl Donegan's Studio Visit, and Molissa Fenley's Latitudes.

Dia Center for the Arts is a tax-exempt charitable organization. Established in 1974, the institution has become one of the largest in the United States dedicated to contemporary art and contemporary culture. In fulfilling this commitment, Dia sustains diverse programming in visual arts, poetry, arts education, and critical discourse and debate.

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