BreadBytes presents four site-specific installations—two by groups of Bakehouse artists and two by individual Bakehouse artists—that integrate art with technology to consider our future, the future of Bakehouse as an institution, and the future of Miami. It is a showcase of four unique visions.
The Bakehouse campus, once a factory for the production of Merita Bread, stands as a symbol of Miami's dynamic evolution - a city where history gives way to bulldozers and cranes, but memory persists through the intertwined cultures of its people. These installations are not just expressions of artistic intent. They are reflections on our world today: the possible futures that it shapes and the possible roles that Bakehouse can play within it.
Breadbytes is more than an exhibition; it's a dialogue about our shared history and a vision of what it means to be part of the evolving narrative of art at Bakehouse. As visitors navigate these installations, we encourage engagement and contemplation of how each blends the analogue with the digital to consider the future of art and community in a forward-looking Miami.
Past in a Pile REDUX
Please note: This is a site-specific sculptural installation that includes a virtual reality (VR) component. The headset and paddles placed at the front of the exhibit have been calibrated for use while seated. Please feel free to speak with a member of the Bakehouse admin team with any questions or accessibility needs. We have also included a video walk-through as part of the installation, and a longer walk-through here.
“Past in a Pile” was initiated by Bakehouse as part of their “Level Up” workshop series, led by media artist Carla Gannis. Collaborating with Gannis and technologist Yesha Shah, five Bakehouse artists developed a VR extension to Gannis’ wwwunderkammer project. The final installation, playable here, pays homage to the experience of being a Miami artist and the history of Bakehouse.
This is now the second collective installation for “Past in a Pile,” a deeply autobiographical and self-reflexive cri de coeur that comprises thinly veiled but distinctly jumbled piles of past that are cast in shades of pink and white.
Caught between two realities, we find history looming and yet vacant; the purity of spiritual exaltation under the perverse gaze of objectivity; a Miami that is both virtual and physical, both tragic and triumphant.
Participating Artists: Carla Gannis, Chris Dougnac, Jennifer Printz, Malcolm Lauredo, Monica Lopez De Victoria, Tara Long, and Yesha Shah.
For more information about the wwwunderkammer project: https://carlagannis.com/blog/wwwunderkammer/
Merita Bread Language
The “Level Up” Workshop series was created to connect Bakehouse and its artist community with visiting digital artists from outside Miami. The workshops introduced our artist community to new tools and new practices while informing our plans as we conceptualize our plans for a future renovated Bakehouse site. For our inaugural workshop, Bakehouse resident artists collaborated with the code artist, photographer, and painter Daniel Temkin. Together, they embarked on a day-long workshop to explore “esolangs,” or esoteric programming languages.
The resulting tool, which they named "Merita," is a programming language that generates visual sculptures from the “code” of vintage recipes that use Merita Bread, manufactured in the same building that Bakehouse occupies today. The code is interactive – clicking on the recipe allows viewers to alter ingredients and change portions, all of which impacts the visual output.
Participating Artists: Alyssa Andrews, Amanda Linares, Daniel Temkin, Gabriela Gamboa, Leo Castañeda, Lauren Shapiro, Maria Theresa Barbist, Monica Lopez de Victoria, Patricia Monclus, Smita Sen, and Xavier Lujan.
Eyeseeyou.watch
Fabiola Larios is an interdisciplinary artist whose work probes the convergence of technology, identity, and representation in the digital age. This installation delves into the paradox of seeing and being seen in an era of omnipresent surveillance and cultural voyeurism. Drawing her inspiration from Nietzsche's contemplation of gazing into the abyss only to have the abyss gaze into you, Larios confronts viewers with the dialectic of our obsessive self-awareness and voyeuristic obsession with the “Other.”
Using a mannequin as its “canvas,” the installation transforms inconspicuous security devices into unmissable artifacts of aesthetic allure that obviate the minimalist design of traditional surveillance to demand our recognition, highlighting the interplay between technological observation and individual self-reflection. The piece also offers an “outsider's” perspective, if we can find it. In this intricate dance of reflection and surveillance, the looming question persists: Who truly wields the power of observation?
From Cradle to AGI
Moises Sanabria is an interdisciplinary artist who works with AI, machine learning, virtual reality, and film. “From Cradle to Quantum” captures the nascent stages of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and Sanabria’s more optimistic and empowering take on an impending paradigm shift towards harmonious coexistence with advanced AI. This ready-made assembly—a smart baby stroller, crafted from PC gaming components and AI-enhanced GPUs—epitomizes the Pre-Natal Genesis of AGI, highlighting the profound influence such technologies will have on “Generation Alpha” – those born amid the AI revolution.
By emphasizing our pivotal role in shaping AI's formative years, Sanabria invites us to envisage a future where the delineation between man and machine becomes intertwined, echoing Donna Haraway's insight: "The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us. We are responsible for boundaries; we are they."
Merita Workshop
Maria Theresa Barbist is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on sculpture, performance and film. Barbist compiled this short video to document the Merita workshop using different photos and videos taken by the participants. Barbist’s final product layers sounds, videos, and photographs into an abstract composite that documents the ideas and activities of the workshop, but in a fun and subversive way.
Bread: The Staff of Life
This unique wallpaper project is an artistic collaboration between two visual artists, Patricia Monclus and Amanda Linares, who drew their inspiration from the Merita recipe book and old advertisements from Bakehouse’s digital archives. The images are partially collaged and partially AI-generated from written descriptions of the advertisements. The final results evoke a sense of nostalgia for a past that never existed, and a future that lies just beyond the limits of our collective imagination and eludes our grasp of present reality.
We are especially grateful to the Knight Foundation for its generous and ongoing support, which funded the workshops that led to the works shown in this exhibition. We are also grateful for ongoing support from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council; Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioner; Florida Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture; Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation, and the Wille Family Foundation.