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With Surrey’s UrbanScreen set to close, a farewell talk will involve ‘Body As Border’ artists

Whalley’s digital-art venue could move to another site in Surrey, operators say
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A view of the current “Body As Border” digital-art exhibit at Surrey’s UrbanScreen, on the west wall of Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre. (Photo: Surrey Art Gallery/Brian Giebelhaus)

In a farewell event for Surrey’s UrbanScreen, a special talk will involve three of the artists whose work is currently shown at the digital-art venue.

After 12 years in operation, the Surrey Art Gallery-operated UrbanScreen will soon end programming at Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre, on the west wall of the Whalley building.

To commemorate both the final exhibition at UrbanScreen, “Body as Border: Traces and Flows of Connection,” as well as the legacy of UrbanScreen itself, a panel discussion is planned at Surrey Art Gallery on Saturday, March 19, starting at 1 p.m., involving artists and academic researchers at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Art and Technology (SIAT).

• RELATED STORY, from Feb. 4: UrbanScreen to be unplugged at Surrey rec centre after ‘Body as Border’ digital-art show.

Once billed as “Canada’s largest art-dedicated outdoor screen,” UrbanScreen will be decommissioned in the months following “Body as Border,” shown in the after-dark hours until May 1.

UrbanScreen operators say the decommissioning is due to expansion plans for the rec centre, where the screen has been an outdoor exhibition site for Surrey Art Gallery since 2010.

The digital projection system could move to another site in Surrey, if and when gallery operators secure grant funding.

Stated Rhys Edwards, SAG’s assistant curator: “Although we are sad to be saying goodbye to UrbanScreen, at least in its current form, we look forward to future venues in the City that will grow from its legacy, providing artists and audiences opportunities to create and engage with digital and interactive art.”

The “Body As Border” digital-art show combines poetry, artificial intelligence and biology in “an immersive outdoor art project” created by the artist team of Pr0phecy Sun, Freya Zinovieff, Gabriela Aceves-Sepúlveda and Steve DiPaola.

They created “a moving soundtrack set to imagery of the Fraser River, the human body, bacteria, cells, and fragments of poetry.” The exhibit “highlights the profound interconnection between individual human beings and the broader ecological and digital environments in which we live.”

For more details visit surrey.ca/artgallery, or call 604-501-5566.



tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com

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Tom Zillich

About the Author: Tom Zillich

I cover entertainment, sports and news stories for the Surrey Now-Leader, where I've worked for more than half of my 30-plus years in the newspaper business.
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