PRESS home
Post Position, by Nick Montford
http://nickm.com/post/2009/05/children-of-arcadia/
Art and New England magazine, Feature article on Children of Arcadia, in April 2009.
Boston Phoenix review, April 2009
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Arts/81601-Our-digital-landscape/
Video Interview by the Boston Globe, April 2009
The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, What to see at 2009 Cyberarts Fest, April 2009 http://www.gregcookland.com/journal/
The Portland Pheonix, Keepin' it real . . . sort of, Virtual reality at the Boston Cyberarts Festival, By EVAN J. GARZA. April 15, 2009
http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Arts/80573-Keepin-it-real-sort-of/
Artscope, featured Children of Arcadia in “email blast!” April 30th 2009
Hubarts.com, April 2009
http://www.hubarts.com/weblog/2009/04/boston-cyberarts-festival-2009-hubarts-interview.html
Art Digital Magazine, April 2009 http://admag.wordpress.com/
Enter the matrix, By Greg Cook, January 13, 2009
http://thephoenix.com/Providence/Arts/75058-Enter-the-matrix/
Rhizome [blog]
by Ceci Moss
retrieved November 5 2008
Networked Performance [blog]
by Jo-Anne Green
http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/2008/10/14/children-of-arcadia/
retrieved October15 2008
Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory [blog]
by Ana Boa-Ventura
http://www.hastac.org/scholars/forum/09-22-08Metaverses-and-Scholarly-Collaboration
retrieved Sept 23 2008
self-portrait.net
critics pick
http://www.selfportrait.net/index.php?f=item.php|medium_id=4
retrieved Sept 29 2008
"I'm not going to lie - Mark Skwarek's work scares me. His computer-generated interactive scenarios show us what the world will be like if any number of catastrophes occurred. His virtual overlays place one in the thick of grave hypothetical realities, like the 42nd street library in ruins. In another piece, he overlays the New York skyline with that of Baghdad. When smoke rises to the clouds there, we see the grim image in our own skyline. We love his non-virtual installations too, especially an empty, sterile room he created with 400 headphone speakers embedded in to the walls, giving off an eerie hum. He lives in Bushwick, is part of the Rhizome ArtBase, and is RISD MFA 08'."
The Boston Phoenix
RISD grads share their visions
by GREG COOK | May 28, 2008
***edited -- full version here
"RISD’s annual “Graduate Thesis Exhibition” could be just the place to glimpse the future of art, as predicted by the school that U.S. News & World Report recently said has the best master of fine arts program in the country."
"No trends pop out. This year’s painting and photography are bland, but the show comes through with its usual selection of stylish graphic design and alluringly curious fashion, like Nanhee Kim’s exploded sweater and knit dresses covered with stuff that looks like knit scales or dinosaur fins. But mostly this year’s event is populated by been-there-done-that ideas and styles."
"An exception is Mark Skwarek’s Children of Arcadia, which invites you to explore a digital apocalypse. Lightning flashes and rain pours down on rolling green hills dotted with tall trees and ruined classical-type temples. Great plumes of smoke billow into the sky. Blonde women in blue dresses wander about with names hovering above their heads. Occasionally a bit of type pops up on the screen, something about “NYSE” (the New York Stock Exchange). As video game worlds go, it’s good, but nothing much seems to develop. The most interesting thing I found was a group of six virtual ladies rest-lessly walking in a tight circle like furies or fates."
"A computer intro explains that this “is a real time virtual ecosystem which undergoes the stress test of the apocalypse to expose the moral fibers of its inhabitants and the flaws in their idealized utopia.” The virtual landscape somehow corresponds to the landscape of New York’s Wall Street. Real people can also supposedly wander New York’s actual financial district wearing special goggles that allow them to virtu-ally wander the apocalyptic arcadia. The severity of the virtual apocalypse is determined by US economic data and Google headline searches for America “good” or “evil.” That’s a lot to take on, and it doesn’t quite add up here, but Skwarek’s onto something."
VVork.com [blog]
http://www.vvork.com/?m=200804
retrieved April 2008
Block Magazine
"Intellectual Economy” attacks gallery system
THE UNRELATED FINDS A HOME AND LIGHTS UP CAVE
E.A. Linden
***shortened
Until the 25th of this month. Cave, at 58 Grand Street, is showing a video installation titled "Intellectual Economy," by Robert Ladislas Derr.
Cave is a fascinating venue for contemporary art, as it offers both a main gallery and studio spaces behind, which are part of CAVE AcTS, the gallery's Artists in Residence program. Cave was founded in 1996 and is now one of the longest running experimental art spaces in Williamsburg.
Passing on ahead to studio K, one enters Mark Skwarek's "58%", a fantastic mixed-media offering in a small, windowless room, resembling the inside of a cube, with a low ceiling and bright florescent light. The cube's surfaces are entirely covered in what appear to be single-mold casts of a porous plaster skin. The installation is accompanied by a hissing white noise that neutralizes the pounding heard outside. It feels futuristic, and in this context, serves as a purifier, entirely white and clean. One feels transformed by this piece.
It is important to note that the steady sound also causes one to question the purpose of the pores; something in their neat regularity makes them indistinct from each other, whereas when, as if by suggestion, one begins to wonder if some gas may indeed be being pumped into this room, each pore becomes more curious and terrible. Like all good science fictions, "58%" is both unfamiliar and miraculous. The rest of the studio spaces are ultimately less effective, largely interesting for their grab-bag feel in comparison to the satisfying, organic nature of the preceding three environments. Studio S houses "Broken Circus." drawings by Mary Doyle, which reads more as an installation that is immature in both subject-matter and accomplishment, while studios N and D show paintings by Naoki Iwakawa and Daisuke Nishimura, respectively.