| Mixed Realities - An International
Networked Art Exhibition and Symposium Opening and Performance: February 7, 2008; 5-7 pm Symposium: February 8; 10 am - 5 pm Workshop: February 9; 1-5 pm Exhibition: February 7 - April 15, 2008 Free and Open to the Public To Register for Symposium: email jo at turbulence dot org with Symposium in the subject line (Lunch included) To Register for Workshop: email jo at turbulence dot org with Workshop in the subject line (Limited to 12 participants) |
| Exhibition | Mixed
Realities: An International Networked Art Exhibition Venues: Huret & Spector Gallery, 10
Boylston Place, 6th Floor [MAP:
select #4, The Tufte Performance and Production Center],
Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts; Ars
Virtua (Second Life - Teleport)*
and Turbulence.org. Caterwaul When someone screams in real life, do they hear us in
virtual reality? Proske's work involves exposing the unspoken relationships we have with technology and harnessing machines into exploring new aesthetics. He has exhibited or performed in Australia, Sweden., Brazil, Japan and the Netherlands. Having studied Electrical Engineering and Liberal Arts at
the University of Melbourne, Australia, Pierre spent 4 years in Sweden
where he performed, exhibited and obtained a Master of Science in Art
and Technology from Chalmers University. His background in arts, engineering,
philosophy, music and literature provides him with sufficient options
to keep himself perpetually occupied in a self-inspired quest to weave
together several unrelated threads of activity. Imaging Beijing is the latest installment of Imaging Place, a place-based, virtual reality project that combines panoramic photography, digital video, and virtual worlds to investigate and document situations where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals in local communities. The goal of the project is to develop the technologies, the methodology and the content for truly immersive and navigable narrative, based in real places. When a denizen of Second Life first arrives at Imaging Beijing, he, she or it can walk over a satellite image of central Beijing where they will find a networks of nodes constructed of primitive spherical geometry with panoramic photographs texture mapped to the interior. The avatar can walk to the center of one of these nodes and use a first person perspective to view the image, giving the user the sensation of being immersed in the location. Streaming audio is localized to individual nodes providing
narrative content for the scene. This content includes stories of formative
memory told by Peter Guo, a resident of Beijing, who appear in the images.
The work is projected nine by twelve feet in a darkened space with a pedestal
and a mouse placed in the center of the installation enabling the audience
to interact with it. A web-cam captures live video of the user and transmits
it to the head of an exhibition avatar. Dated links in the virtual space
launch a browser, which opens a web journal of the Imaging Beijing
field research. In 1992 Freeman was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has been published in Leonardo, the Journal of Visual Culture, and Exposure, as well as a chapter in the book Electronic Collaboration in the Humanities. His work has been reviewed in Wired News, Artforum, Ten-8, Z Magazine, Afterimage, Photo Metro, New Art Examiner, Time, Harper's and Der Spiegel. Lucy Lippard cites Freeman's work in her book The Lure of the Local, as does Margot Lovejoy in her book Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age. Freeman received a Bachelor of Art degree from the University
of California, San Diego in 1986 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from
the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1990. He is an Associate Professor
of New Media at Emerson College in Boston. The focus of his academic activities
throughout the last decade has been to integrate computer technology and
theory of electronic culture into visual art curriculum and to explore
interdisciplinary approaches to education and technology. NO MATTER is an interactive installation that activates the transformation of imaginary objects through the Second Life virtual economy into physical space. Second Life builders construct replicas of famous buildings, luxury goods and custom-designed objects, first reproducing, then inverting the notion of value itself. With zero cost for gathering resources, production of goods and transport of finished product, these items proliferate widely and quickly. In the real world, consumer items and imaginary objects serve as forms of emotional attachment — projection screens for desire, fear and love. These idealized forms seem real but when actualized in Second Life, they simultaneously disappoint and fascinate. Likewise, humans have long sought escape from the physical world through both stories and invention, creating “imaginary objects”, which embody the tension between the ideal and the real. These shared cultural artifacts surface in mythology (Holy Grail, Trojan Horse), literature (Tell-Tale Heart), film (Maltese Falcon), thought experiments (Schrodinger’s Cat) and impossible inventions (Time Machine). Second Life, an online social environment, offers similar possibilities of the imaginary. With 3D-simulated space combined with a virtual currency and social interaction, this is a fully functioning economy of the immaterial. NO MATTER reflects this tension between
the imaginary and real economics by (1) commissioning 25 builders and
artists to produce 40 cultural artifacts in Second Life space;
(2) paying them in Linden dollars at an equivalent scale of $1.50 to $12.00
per object; (3) extracting the objects from Second Life —
a closed system where 3D models cannot be exported; (4) inviting volunteers
to reconstruct these as 3D paper replicas in physical space and paying
them the equivalent wages in Linden dollars. Victoria
Scott is a visual artist who works with electronic media,
sculpture and social relations, both materially and as conceptual metaphor.
For over a decade she has researched and created large-scale installations,
objects, digital prints and audio works. Her ongoing projects include
the material depiction of personal simulations and psychological spaces
within online environments and real life. She is also developing a series
of batteries that are charged by emotional energy and microorganisms.
Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Victoria graduated from the New
Media/Photo Electric Arts Dept., at The Ontario College of Art & Design.
In 2003, she was awarded the full Trustees Scholarship to attend at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago within the Art and Technology Department.
Scott completed her MFA in 2005. She has exhibited in Sweden, Mexico City,
Toronto, Berlin, Boston, Miami and Chicago and is the recipient of grants
from both the Canada and Ontario Arts Councils. Remote connects together two spaces, one
in Boston the other in Second Life, and treats them
as a single contiguous environment, bound together by the internet so
that things that occur in one space affect things that happen in the other
and vice versa -- remotely controlling each other. Communication between
the two halves of this extended environment is a complex choreography
coupling the environmental phenomena of humidity, temperature, light,
speech, mist, wind, sound and proximity across the two. The object in
Boston appears to be a seat; but, experientially, the Second
Life space appears to be inside the seat. A similar alteration of
scale occurs in the other direction. Visitors to the Boston space
and the Second Life space must negotiate to achieve goals: e.g.
by sitting down, breathing, touching, knocking, colliding. The environmental
data of both spaces is publicly available in realtime via the EnvironmentXML
repository enabling others to build devices and spaces that connect directly
to both Boston and Second Life. The intention is to
explore an architecture that is resolutely "human" (in the sense
of being inhabited, configured and determined by its occupants) yet context-free
(because it does not privilege geographical location). Usman Haque, Haque Design + Research, architect and programmer, UK, has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. His skills include the design of both physical spaces and the software and systems that bring them to life. Ai Hasegawa, Haque Design + Research, illustrator and interaction designer, studied at the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Japan. She spends most of her time in the world of manga but when she occasionally comes back to this planet she specialises in Flash with a little bit of Processing. Georg
Tremmel, Japan/Austria, studied Media Art in Vienna and Interaction
Design at the Royal College of Art in London. His body of work mainly
consists of interactive installations, of both the physical and meta-physical
kind. In the 1st century BC, Roman writer, architect and engineer Vitruvius authored specific building formulae based on the guiding principles of strength, utility and beauty. For him, architecture is intrinsically linked to nature and is an imitation of cosmic order. The most well-known interpretation of this postulate is the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci in which the human form is depicted in unity with the square and circle - representing material and spiritual existence respectively. This tripart union of human body, material form and spiritual essence maintains relevance within the current climate of distributed presences, mixed realities and internet cultures. The proliferation of synthetic worlds and virtual constructs engendered by our technologically-enabled mainstream provides new realms for creative exploration and actual existence. The Vitruvian World is a real-time immersive
installation that embodies the principles of Vitruvius within this contemporary
context. Existing in three distinct yet interconnected spaces, the artwork
simultaneously embraces the virtual, the physical, and the network that
connects them. Michael
Takeo Magruder is an American artist based in the UK working
with New and Technological Media within Contemporary Arts practice. His
artworks have been showcased in over 180 exhibitions and 30 countries,
including venues such as the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, EAST
International 2005, Georges Pompidou Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum
of Photography and Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau. His works are regular
inclusions in international New Media festivals, such as Cybersonica,
CYNETart, FILE, Filmwinter, SeNef, Siggraph, Split, VAD and WRO. His artistic
practice has been funded directly by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation,
Arts Council England, The National Endowment for the Arts, USA and numerous
public galleries both within the UK and abroad. Michael is also recognized
for his on-line arts practice and has been commissioned by leading portals
for Internet Art such as Turbulence.org and Soundtoys.net. His current
interests concern the simultaneous utilization and dissection of new technology
as a means to explore the formal structures and conceptual paradigms of
the digital realm. He seeks to create artworks in which there are no divisions
between technologies, aesthetics, and concepts. Drew Baker is a Senior Research Fellow within the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London. One of the founding members of King's Visualisation Lab, he has worked in the field of archaeological 3D visualization and interpretation for over ten years. His specialization is in the area of 3D modeling - specifically interactive web-based environments and constructs. Drew’s primary interest in deploying 3D and advanced technologies within cultural practice is to transform spectators into active participants though the utilization of virtual worlds and artifacts. He is currently concluding a two year AHRC-funded project exploring the process of cognitive modeling in 3D environments and how visualization methodologies can be recorded and understood. David Steele is a
senior technical consultant based in Arlington, Virginia, USA working
with advanced web technology and database architecture. He has been undertaking
research and development in these fields since the middle nineties and
was a pioneer in pairing cutting-edge clients to existing corporate infrastructures.
David’s work has enabled a variety of high profile applications
from global text messaging frameworks to re-entry systems for the space
shuttle. He is currently interested in exploring the limits of what code
can run in a browser in order to reduce server load and enhance the user
experience. The ultimate goal is for users to forget that they are working
in a browser as the web converges with native applications. |
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| New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. commissioned five works ($5,000 each) for Mixed Realities with funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Hosted by Emerson College’s Huret & Spector Gallery, the exhibition and symposium are funded by Emerson College's School of the Arts and Department of Visual and Media Arts; and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. | ||
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