Permission Taken launched at Birmingham Open Media on 23rd October and it couldn’t have been better!
You may have noticed my internet presence has been somewhat quiet over the last few months. This can all be attributed to the many hours it took to prepare for this, my first solo exhibition. Prior to this I had done many performances, contributed videos, gifs and still images to group shows, and curated shows featuring the work of other artists. Being given the large gallery space of BOM was therefore quite a challenge and a new experience.
I’m happy to announce the launch of my first solo exhibition, Permission Taken, taking place at Birmingham Open Media from 23rd October 2015 to 23rd January 2016.
The exhibition features a number of digital, video, print and installation pieces developed as part of my residency at the University of Birmingham’s Research and Cultural Collections and Fellowship at Birmingham Open Media. The pieces explore ideas of ownership, copyright and free culture - issues which are pertinent as online communities become more prolific and harder to police.
Artist, performer and musician Antonio Roberts works with technology in innovative ways, exploring authorship, gaming, digital and reproduction.
In the Spring of 2024, his Vivid Lab research residency focused on developing an experimental narrative fiction game using Twine software. This work was showcased from May 3rd to May 11th 2024 in a solo exhibition at Vivid Projects titled A Boy is a Gun; an exploration of stereotypical roles within video games, black masculinity and the artist’s own experiences of growing up as a black British boy and teen. These themes are explored through the vehicle of the character Skate Hunter (from Streets of Rage 2), reimagined by Roberts, presenting a new fictional narrative to better reflect his own life, blending a gaming world with an all too real experience.