What is the fate of print in a digital age? Parsons School of Design takes on this challenge with Control: Print, a collaborative exhibition with the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, which explores the intersection of craft and technology.

Control: Print features works by a number of notable international artists and designers who play with the notion of digital technology. In this first American presentation, prominent members of the Parsons community create work in traditional, digital, and mixed media that extend the idea of ink on paper and showcase how machinery and technology can enter the representational process. First conceived by RCA as a research project investigating the possibilities of a customized future for digital art and design, Control: Print also features the results of these experiments in a series of limited edition book spreads, large-scale artwork, and digital projections and renderings.

Among the featured artists are co-organizers Lucille Tenazas, Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design at Parsons, Warren-Fisher, and Dan Fern, Head of the School of Communications at the RCA; Parsons-commissioned artists Andrea Dezsö; Danny Durtsche, Jesse Hlebo and Arthur Ou; Zachary Lieberman with James Powderly, Evan Roth, Chris Sugrue and Tony Quan (TEMPT); Spylab (Benjamin Bacon, Glendon Jones, Kyle Li, and Sven Travis); and Allan Wexler; and RCA-commissioned artists Chris Bigg of V23; Sara Carneholm and Leah Harrison Bailey; Malcom Clarke, and Mark Wilson. Also participating remotely are designers Reza Abedini (Iran), Bruno Monguzzi (Italy/Switzerland), Leonardo Sonnoli (Italy), and Catherine Zask (France).

In timing with Control: Print, Parsons will present a series of related programs, including three intensive 24-hour workshops, where the public can view teams of Parsons students and faculty creating work that actively explores the boundaries between traditional and digital technologies. A symposium on November 7 will bring together a number of the participants, including Clarke, Tenazas, Warren-Fisher, and Wilson, as well as leading voices from the worlds of art and design, including Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, and Susan Yelavich, Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons, who will discuss the future relationship of design, craft, and technology.

“This show is just the beginning of a long-term partnership between two world-class universities to explore urgent issues relating to all aspects of contemporary culture,” said Fern, who also chairs the RCA’s International Development Group.