[Purple-Blurb] Art opening March 6, 6pm; Purple Blurb presentation March 10, 5:30pm

[Nick Montfort]

Dear Purple Blurbers,

There are two exciting events in the next week that you should know about:

On March 6, 6pm-9pm, there is the opening of my & Páll Thayer's show, 
"Programs at an Exhibition." The show features Commodore 64 BASIC and Perl 
programs that re-create aspects of 20th Century artworks, with code 
available for visitors to take home, try out, and modify. "Programs" is up 
March 6-16 at the Boston Cyberarts Gallery, which is located in the Green 
Street T station on the Orange Line. Páll and I hope we will see you at 
the Thursday opening.

The event is not at MIT, but like all the Purple Blurb events, it is free 
and open to the public.

Here's a complete post about the exhibit:

http://nickm.com/post/2014/02/programs-at-an-exhibition-march-6-16/

And the Boston.com preview of the exhibit:

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/jamaica_plain/2014/03/programs_at_an_exhibition_opens_at_boston_cyberarts_gallery.html

The second event to note is the first official Purple Blurb presentation 
of the semester, a talk by Páll Thayer about his Microcodes series, 
several programs from which are featured in the exhibit.

Páll will speak in MIT's 14E-303 (in the same building where the Hayden 
Library is located, across the courtyard) at 5:30pm on Monday March 10.

It will be great to see you there to hear about Páll Thayer's long-term 
code art project.

Microcodes are short Perl programs that are also artworks, presented for 
viewers to read, download, and execute. Thayer will trace some key steps 
showing how he went from his background in painting and drawing to 
presenting code as his artwork.

Páll Thayer is an Icelandic artist working primarily with computers and 
the Internet. He is devout follower of open-source culture. His work is 
developed using open-source tools and source-code for his projects is 
always released under a GPL license. His work has been exhibited at 
galleries and festivals around the world with solo shows in Iceland, 
Sweden and New York and notable group shows in the US, Canada, Finland, 
Germany and Brazil (to name but a few). Pall Thayer has an MFA degree in 
visual arts from Concordia University in Montreal. He is an active member 
of Lorna, Iceland’s only organization devoted to electronic arts. He is 
also an alumni member of The Institute for Everyday Life, 
Concordia/Hexagram, Montreal. Pall Thayer currently works as a lecturer 
and technical support specialist at SUNY Purchase College, New York.

The Purple Blurb page, with all of this semester's events, is here:

http://trope-tank.mit.edu/purple_blurb/

  -Nick