Take a Number: Chris Combs and Evan Hume

Join Take a Number artists Evan Hume and Chris Combs for a discussion about their work and their shared interest in surveillance and technology.

The talk takes place in conjunction with Take a Number: Artists in Bureaucracy, on view at AAC through December 18. It will take place online and is free but registration is required. Register here.

Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy, features seven artists who explore, co-opt, and challenge bureaucratic systems and structures. They highlight the human impact of bureaucratic institutions, from the professional relationships between artists and arts organizations, to the obscure workings of financial systems, to the violent and deadly consequences wrought by global empires. More about Take a Number.

Chris Combs is an artist based in Washington, DC and Mount Rainier, Maryland who creates provocative technology. His first solo exhibition, Judging Me Judging You, at DC Arts Center explored themes of surveillance and control, and his installation Maelstrom at Rhizome DC featured 35 machines spreading rumors about its visitors. Madness Method, a large-scale collaboration with David Greenfieldboyce, was part of the Georgetown GLOW public art festival in 2021. He was selected as the Derek Lieu Spring 2020 Artist-in-Residence at HOLE IN THE SKY, is a recipient of the DC CAH Arts and Humanities Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Aesthetica Art Prize. Chris is a graduate of the Corcoran College of Art + Design and a member of the Otis Street Arts Project.

Evan Hume lives and works in South Bend, Indiana, where he is the Visiting Lecturer of Photography at the University of Notre Dame. He received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and MFA from George Washington University. Raised in the Washington, DC area, Hume’s approach to photography is informed by the experience of living in the nation’s political center for much of his life and focuses on the medium’s use as an instrument of the national security state. He has exhibited widely, and his work has been featured by publications such as Aperture and Der Greif. Hume’s first monograph, Viewing Distance, will be published by Daylight Books in fall 2021.