Carla Ciuffo: Portals within the Modern Era

Carla Ciuffo’s latest show entitled “Portals: Immersive Contemporary Art” propels gallery-viewing into the 21st Century. Ciuffo has always been fascinated with the enigma of being human. In the modern age, to be human, is also to be intertwined with technology and media. Recently, electronic devices, such as phones, have begun to receive an unsavory perception regarding in-gallery use. Carla has partnered with the Artivive App and has regained control of the relationship between the gallery and technology. She pushes it further by encouraging the viewer to interact with her work using smart phones.

Carla Ciuffo has been a photographic artist for nearly fifteen years. In this span of time, she has received numerous awards for her work that broadly ranges from non-narrative animated shorts, Nano-fiber work with Harvard University’s Applied Physics and Bioengineering group, to manipulation with augmented reality. Ciuffo uses this culmination of experience to make installation pieces that are not what initially meets the eye. Upon experiencing “Portals: Immersive Contemporary Art,” the viewer is pulled into Ciuffo’s envisioned dimension as if windows to a new world.

“Portals” rejects the traditional, static nature of photographs; and are full of life, energy, and motion. Carla Ciuffo’s work pushes the boundaries of what gallery viewing should be. The portals, themselves, have a hypnotic and transient quality about them. There is a cyclical balance between the promise of new life and seemingly inevitable destruction within Human-Environmental Interactions. It seems to showcase the victories and the woes of technological advancements through the portal with the viewer’s own lens. To experience this show and engage in this series, visit Tinney Contemporary Gallery until March 9th 2019.