Casey Reas
John Baldessari
Scott Snibbe
Through September 6 - Poetic Codings at the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art. When I was gifted with the very first iPad (still grateful for that, m!) sure the first app I downloaded was Words With Friends. But after that I started to fill my device with interactive art and sound projects, some of them no more than beautiful time-wasters but absorbing just the same. I was delighted to see some of those old friends, like Scott Snibbe's Antograph, featured in this excellent group exhibition at the SJICA that examines work at the intersection of art and technology. A visitor could easily lose an hour or two (I did) messing around with the two dozen+ apps on the iPads in the gallery, where the developers explore new forms of storytelling, music-making, and creative engagement. Meanwhile artworks are also projected on the walls of the gallery, like Casey Reas's generative software piece that endlessly evolves television signals into a glitched-out collage and John Carpenter's enchanting Dandelion Clock in which a wave of the hand sends the imaginary seeds flying. The exhibition invites you to compare and contrast the public versus the private art experience, standing in a gallery versus sitting at a table, and to how your body and your brain respond to each in kind.