| Difference Engine (DE) presents Travelator the tenth collective experiment of the evolving work of Gillian Lawler, Jessica Foley, Mark Cullen and Wendy Judge.
DE invited by artist/curator Tracy Hanna to install a context-sensitive exhibition at ONONOgallery, Rotterdam within the constraints of a small shower room in a 20th century apartment located in the Old Charlois district of Rotterdam.
Difference Engine is noted for installations that respond to context. The defunct shower room of ONONO offers intriguing conditions that will place their work in a confined and overtly domestic sphere. Travelator offers DE an intersection between the realities of artistic production in this contemporary city against the jostling of its own mechanisms as a group. The renovated apartment is an enticing context to develop new improvisations together and to open up conversations at close quarters through the force of compression.
Difference Engine is both an evolving exhibition and a model of artist-led curation by Wendy Judge, Gillian Lawler, Mark Cullen and Jessica Foley who have been working and touring together since 2009.
Their collective name is lifted from the 19th century work of Charles Babbage, the world’s first mechanical computational machine: The Difference Engine. Babbage was a cantankerous English mathematician, philosopher, inventor, mechanical engineer and notorious collaborator with the world’s first computer programmer, Lady Ada Lovelace.
Adopting the name Difference Engine as a kind of poetic motto for working together creatively, pragmatically and critically, they particularly enjoy Babbage’s aphorism that “Jamming is a form of Error Detection,” and take this as something of a slogan for collective experimentation and collaboration.
Difference Engine play with the idea of ‘jamming’ as both a way of making art and a way of life. In one sense ‘jamming’ signifies stasis, shock, or rupture, but in another sense it signifies change, growth, improvisation and invigoration between players. Their work combines model-making, painting, multi-media installation and performance. The tight space of the shower room will force a compression, ramping up the tensions inherent in creative collaboration. They expect some sparks to fly.
ONONO is a project space and studio co-founded by Cihad Caner, Raluca Croitoru, Daniel Fogarty, Tracy Hanna and Clara J:son Borg. It was established in 2016 and hosts exhibitions, screenings and other events.
Previous Difference Engine exhibitions include, Accumulator III, Limerick City Gallery, 2013, Accumulator II, Oriel Myrrdin Gallery, Wales, 2013, Accumulator, West Cork Arts Centre, 2012, Manifestation V, SOMA Contemporary, Waterford, 2012, Manifestation IV, Wexford Arts Centre, 2012, Manifestation III, CSV Cultural Arts Center, New York, 2011, Manifestation II, ESB Sub-Station, Triskel Arts Centre and Black Mariah, Cork, 2010, Manifestation, Cake Contemporary Arts, Kildare, 2009.
 Lung & drawing, mountain , Cullen, Judge Upcoming exhibitions include Altern-ator, HDLU, the Centre for the Association of Croatian Artists, Zagreb, Croatia, April 2018.
www.differenceengineartists.org
www.markcullen.org
www.wendyjudgeart.squarespace.com
www.gillianlawler.org
www.jessicafoleywriting.com
Travellator is supported by CULTURE IRELAND
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Mark Cullen 