LONDON.- In this first UK institutional exhibition of Neïl Beloufa’s work, the ICA will show a selection of his latest works on film alongside recent sculptural works across the Lower Galleries and Theatre. These explore the representation of digital information systems and the often conflicting desires for openly available information within mass media. They will be exhibited in specifically designed architectural installations where certain aspects of the images are able to be manipulated and fragmented throughout layers of screens within space.

Within the Lower Galleries, audiences will be met by a series of new sculptures and fragmented and live video works, Beloufa seeks to further break the conventional relationship with the screen, reorienting the way the audience relates to the imaginary constructs of a digital realm and the real world. The installation will premier three new films, the first entitled Data for Desire (2014) that seeks to explore and predict via mathematical systems the personality traits and actions of a group of people within a constructed environment. The second film VENGEANCE (2014) documents the artist’s engagement with a group of youths who directed and developed the films narrative. Both of these new works construct situations and scenarios to make powerful statements about the complexities of human interaction and how we choose to interpret the world.

Originally made for the Palais du Tokyo exhibition, his film La domination du monde (World Domination) (2012) will feature together with a newly commissioned film in partnership with Banff Arts Centre entitled Home is Whenever I'm with You, 2014. The film illustrates how we choose to communicate via social media and engage with information and new forms of moving imagery since the advent of the internet and its relationship with the viewer. In a new element for this presentation, a large scale sculpture of a pre-historic dinosaur, The first dinosaur, lampshade, fertility and complete denial (2014), created from referencing specious illustrations sourced from the internet oversees this video work.

Counting on People continues at The Banff Centre Walter Phillips Gallery, Canada (8 November 2014 – 2 March 2015) and La Casa Encendida, Spain (12 February – 5 April 2015).

The French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa was born in 1985 in Paris. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia; Cooper Union, New York; and Le Fresnoy–Studio National des Arts Contemporain, Tourcoing, France. His work has been shown in contemporary art venues as well as in film festivals. He has had solo exhibitions at the Mendes Wood Gallery, Sao Paolo (2014), at the Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris (2014); the Hammer museum, Los Angeles (2013); Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria (2012); the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); the New Museum, New York (2011); and White Box, New York (2008), among others, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions. His videos have been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011); the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2009, 2012, 2014); and the London Film Festival (2009, 2010, 2011), and he was awarded grand prizes at the 54th and 57th Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage in Oberhausen, Germany. Beloufa has received many other honors, most recently the Audi Talent Award, Paris (2011) and the Meurice Prize for contemporary art (2013).