Binary Solved happened last night at NLS Gallery. Rodell Warner and DJ Afifa are two artists who collaborated to creat “an interactive sound art installation for the NLS 48-hour residency,” according to a description. In the exhibit, the artists’ aim is to “play with and attempt to blow perceived dichotomies of existence…to link the real with the imagined, the other with the self, the digital with the natural, and ultimately, existence with freedom.” A bit about NLS (New Local Space)- it is a non-profit contemporary, visual art initiative in Kingston which is intended to help artists “break new ground in their chose disciplines, and to connect such artists to the global contemporary art community.”

Sheets were hung over lines and several feet away, Rodell projected colourful, frenetic patterns onto them. DJ Afifa played music the entire time, setting a provocative mood that contrasted with the images. A third element was the request of attendees to wear all white or all black so that the images would be projected on them as well: “Binary Solved first examines how the world is understood by drawing its conceit from the formal components of designing a work of art- using a ground (the surface on which the image rests) and the figure (the image that rests on this surface) to create an experience that challenges the splintering of the two.”

It was an interesting evening under the stars, surrounded by music and images we would not see otherwise in our daily life. It has got me thinking.