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QUBIT AI: Camila Magrane

The Witness

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival

Image activated by augmented reality, where 3D animated subjects and scenarios are integrated into a physical photograph. Inspired by the work of Carl Jung, the image is part of a larger series that explores themes such as identity, introspection and transformation. Through AR, game elements were introduced into the piece, offering virtual content unlockable through interactions.

Bio

Camila Magrane is a Venezuelan-American visual artist known for her augmented reality images, integrating 3D animated scenes and subjects into physical photographs. With experience in video game development and a passion for analog photography, she explores the dialogue between the virtual and physical worlds. Magrane’s images are inspired by surrealist compositions and reference the graphic hyperrealism of contemporary video game design.

QUBIT AI: Seph Li

Everything Before, Everything After

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival
Seph Li – Everything Before, Everything After – China and UK

A digital installation features a winding river in the style of Chinese painting, symbolizing time and transition. Touch screens allow visitors to paint over it, altering its course unpredictably. The river embodies history and the future, with each trace contributing to its eternal flow through space and time. Recorded interactions ensure its perpetual existence.

Bio

Born in Beijing in 1988, Seph Li has a mixed background in technology and design, and his keen interest in interactive artworks led him to the field of media arts. Seph studied computer science and entertainment design at Tsinghua University and continued his master’s study in design/media arts at UCLA. Seph currently resides in London, United Kingdom; he creates interactive artworks as well as technical experiments with other production studios.

KAZUSHI MUKAIYAMA

IJIROS
file festival
Ijiro is a robot which expresses emotions reacting to a user’s actions. Boldly, it consists of an OLED display, a speaker and an accelerometer in a cylinder shell. Ijiro isn’t able to move itself because it doesn’t have any actuators. However, it expresses emotions with faces in the display and voice from the speaker when a user touches it, lying, standing, swinging, hanging and so on. For example, if a user swings it softly, it reacts smiling. But if a user swings it roughly, it reacts angrily. So those reactions let users feel it like a baby. It is actually baby’s emotions characterized by cognitive science. Also, Ijiro’s shape is designed as a cylinder. It is considered to get various user’s actions because only a cylinder can be stood, lied down, rolled and so on in primitive shapes. Recently it has been easier to use electronic parts for arts. One advantage of making art pieces with compact electronics like a cell phone. So the art style is able to change from being viewed in a large room to being anywhere. Ijiro was developed to entertain people to keep it like a physical pet. We hope you all enjoy touching it.

Ting-Tong Chang

Robinson
FILE FESTIVAL SAO PAULO 2016
The piece “Robinson” is part of Ting-Tong Chang’s new body of work investigating the history of automatons in Europe as a means of exploring utopian visions. The word “automaton” is often used to describe self-moving machines, especially those that have been made to resemble human or animal actions. From Jacques de Vaucanson’s Digesting Duck (1739) to Andreas Jakob Graf Dietrichstein’s Mechanical Theatre (1752), automatons have entertained kings and princesses, taught moral lesson to citizens and raised deep philosophical questions

TING-TONG CHANG

Robinson
FILE FESTIVAL
A obra “Robinson” faz parte do corpo de trabalho de Ting-Tong Chang que investiga a história dos autômatos na Europa como meio de explorar visões utópicas. A palavra “autômato” é freqüentemente usada para descrever máquinas que se movem sozinhas, especialmente aquelas que foram feitas para se assemelhar a ações humanas ou animais. Do Pato Digesting de Jacques de Vaucanson (1739) ao Teatro Mecânico de Andreas Jakob Graf Dietrichstein (1752), os autômatos divertiram reis e princesas, ensinaram lições morais aos cidadãos e levantaram questões filosóficas profundas.

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“Robinson” is part of Ting-Tong Chang’s body of work investigating the history of automata in Europe as a means of exploring utopian visions. The word “automaton” is often used to describe machines that move by themselves, especially those that are made to resemble human or animal actions. From Jacques de Vaucanson’s Duck Digesting (1739) to Andreas Jakob Graf Dietrichstein’s Mechanical Theater (1752), automatons entertained kings and princesses, taught moral lessons to citizens, and raised deep philosophical questions.

Engineered Arts

AMECA
“Multiply the power of artificial Intelligence with an artificial body. Ameca is the physical presence that brings your code to life. The most advanced lifelike humanoid you can use to develop and show off your greatest machine learning interactions. This robot is the digital interface to the real world.” Engineered Arts
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“A U.K. robotics firm called Engineered Arts just debuted the first videos of its new humanoid robot, which is able to make hyper-realistic facial expressions. It’s a pretty stunning achievement in the world of robotics; it just also happens to be absolutely terrifying.
Named Ameca, the robot’s face features eyes, cheeks, a mouth, and forehead that contort and change shape to show off emotions ranging from awe to surprise to happiness. One of the new videos of Ameca shows it waking up and seemingly coming to grips with its own existence for the first time ever.” Neel V.Patel

JOSIAH MCELHENY

Interactions du corps abstrait
Avec “Interactions of the Abstract Body”, McElheny a poussé ces idées plus loin, créant un ensemble de travaux vaste et varié qui examine comment la mode et le modernisme se sont entrecroisés et influencés, en particulier à travers le langage commun du corps. Fondamentalement, McElheny a animé cette dynamique avec la présence constante d’un interprète. En combinant une performance continue en chair et en os avec une sculpture statique dans le même espace de galerie, une première pour White Cube, McElheny rompt radicalement la distinction entre performance et exposition.

Daniel Iregui

ANTIBODIES
ANTIBODIES est une installation interactive qui suit les visages des participants et les incite à faire des expressions faciales. La pièce reflète à quel point nous sommes absents et détachés lors des appels vidéo – la forme aujourd’hui imposée de rassemblements sociaux. À la fin de chaque expérience, toutes les interactions deviennent partie d’une galerie d’êtres humains désincarnés.

Lilla LoCurto & Bill Outcault

The willful marionette
the willful marionette (2014) was created by artists Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault during a residency with the University of North Carolina Charlotte, working with the College of Computing and Informatics as well as the College of Art and Architecture. The marionette is 3d printed from the scanned image of a human figure and responds engagingly in real time to spontaneous human gestures by reading a viewer’s movements and expressions. Its strings are manipulated by motors and software and there are two depth sensors that read and analyze the behaviors and gestures of participants. The puppet’s subsequent actions are designed to elicit further responses, creating an exchange focusing on the frailty and insecurities of the human participant and raising issues of contemporary relevance. The intention of the project was not to create so much a perfectly functioning robot but rather to imbue an obviously mechanically actuated marionette with the ability to solicit a physical and emotional dialog with a viewer.

PEEPING TOM

32 rue vandenbranden
The script of physical actions is inspired by the Japanese film A ballad de Naraiama (1983), by Shohei Imamura, the one with tearing images, like that of the son carrying his mother on his back, embraced by the wind, climbing the mountain to put her on the summit until death, as the local tradition says that every septuagenarian must have an equal destiny. In the same village in the late 19th century, parents used to sell babies to survive. These material and spiritual miseries do not bring literals to the stage. Rather, they are essentials that make the show a fabulous visual poem written in and with the body and the scenic space. The song is also celebrated at the height, with moments such as Stravinski’s The Bird of Fire suite, and the song Fline on you crazy diamond, by the band Pink Floyd.

Shiro Takatani

ST/LL
ST/LL opens on a stage with a long set table, perpendicularly to the orchestra, under the eyes of the audience; on the sides of the table there are some chairs. On the background, coinciding with the inner extremity of the table, there is a projection screen developing vertically, like a painting that evokes the Japanese pictorial tradition. The perimeter of the stage is covered with a veil of water, in which everything reverberates. The whole visual structure of the work develops all around this diaphanous dimension. A man enters the scene and carries out actions on the table: he moves the cutlery, changes the position of the chairs, makes tiny gestures, which let the audience foretell that an action played on the visible will develop. To the sound of a metronome, two women and then a third one enter the scene and sit at the table making gestures that imitate a meal without food.

KOKI TANAKA

田中功起
Everything is Everything

The eight-channel video installation, Everything is Everything, was created for the first time to be shown at the 2006 Taipei Biennial, curated by Dan Cameron. For this work, the artist and two assistants spent a total of eight days recording their interactions and interventions with readily available items, including hangers, glasses, towels, air mattresses and toilet paper, all found in the city of Taipei. The physical properties of these objects have been tested (a metal hanger is stretched to the breaking point) or their uses have been expanded (a level placed on two table legs becomes an improvised obstacle). Tanaka and his assistants experimented with these objects several times indoors and in public, and their explorations were compiled into eight separate video loops lasting from 1:19 to 1:50 minutes. Tanaka’s narrowly cut frame of each scene often features performers from the neck down or removes them completely from the scene, thus focusing the viewer’s attention on the simple, repetitive objects and acts being performed.

Zaha Hadid Architects

Tower C
‘tower C’ by zaha hadid architects within the Shenzhen bay super headquarters base responds to its location at the intersection of the city’s planned north-south green axis and shenzhen’s east-west urban corridor. Connecting directly with its adjacent park and plazas, which transform into a terraced landscape extending upwards within its two towers, the design invites the public into the heart of the building where cultural and leisure attractions are housed in sweeping bridges that tie the towers together and give panoramic views of the city.

Disney Research

Realistic and Interactive Robot Gaze
System for lifelike gaze in human-robot interactions using a humanoid Audio-Animatronics® bust. Previous work examining mutual gaze between robots and humans has focused on technical implementation. We present a general architecture that seeks not only to create gaze interactions from a technological standpoint, but also through the lens of character animation where the fidelity and believability of motion is paramount; that is, we seek to create an interaction which demonstrates the illusion of life. A complete system is described that perceives persons in the environment, identifies persons-of-interest based on salient actions, selects an appropriate gaze behavior, and executes high, fidelity motions to respond to the stimuli. We use mechanisms that mimic motor and attention behaviors analogous to those observed in biological systems including attention habituation, saccades, and differences in motion bandwidth for actuators.

MOMOYO TORIMITSU

鳥光桃代
Miyata Jiro
“Miyata Jiro” by Momoyo Torimitsu is a life size replica of the typical Japanese businessman. Sporting a suit, glasses, and a receding hair line complete with a comb-over, Miyata has mechanically crawled the metropolises of New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney. With the aid of the artist in full nurse costume, the duo engages street and business life (Miyata has crawled the likes of Wall Street and La Defense — epicenters of business cultures as well as typical touristic destinations). The performance and audience reactions were videotaped and photographed and six monitors at the Dikeou Collection play the respective videos, each identified by a small flag for the country in which the crawl took place.

vivian xu

ELECTRIC SKIN

The Electric Skin explores the possibility of creating a wearable that extends the functionality of the skin to sense electromagnetic fields (mostly within the radio spectrum) and translate that information into touch sensation. The wearable consists of two main functional parts: 1) A matrix of omnidirectional antennas that act as sensors and probes and 2) corresponding electrodes that stimulate the skin of the wearer. Through this artificial “skin” or “exoskeleton”, the wearable changes our experience, perception, and understanding of space and movement, and in doing so, our interactions. The project speculates on the possible co-evolution of man and technology and draws attention to the role of environmental influence on our own bodily development and behavior.

Maurice Benayoun

Maurice Benayoun and Tobias Klein
Brain Factory Prototype 2
Brain Factory is an installation that allows the audience to give a shape to human abstractions through Brain-Computer Interaction (BCI), and then to convert the resulting form into a physical object. The work examines the human specificity through abstract constructs such as LOVE, FREEDOM, and DESIRE. The project articulates the relationship between thought and matter, concept and object, humans and machine. Brain Factory uses Electroencephalography (EEG) data captured by BCI. As a brain activity is unique, we developed a novel calibration process of the individual data readings and associated emotional responses within a framework of binary outcomes. This is key for a real-time feedback – a biofeedback – between the virtual generative processes and the brain’s associated response.

SAM BUXTON

Electric Chair

The distinctive work of Sam Buxton is dominated by his innovative use of advanced materials and technologies. From his immensely popular MIKRO series (miniature fold-up sculptures, laser cut into thin strips of stainless steel through an acid etching process) to his explorations concerning interactive intelligent surfaces on the familiar objects around us, his work has continually managed to blur the lines between art, science and design.Through his work, which has regularly involved relatively common objects ranging from business cards to a dining table, Buxton has demonstrated an ability to see potential in what others take for granted. His on-going efforts in developing objects that can communicate, display information and react to the actions of the user, demonstrate his commitment to investigating the delicate relationship between the human body and its environment. Buxton’s fusion of art and science has resulted in a highly innovative and unique range of personal designs, many of which, have utilized the latest, most advanced materials and technologies available.

Vitor Freire

Projeto IJO
FILE SAO PAULO 2015 FILE LED SHOW
“IJO” means dance in Yoruba. The project was born inside a series of actions with the objective of reframing the place of dance and a re-appropriation of the public spaces. Adapted to FILE FESTIVAL, the project unfolds its initial ambition, painting the walls and buildings of the city with dancing. By positioning themselves in front of “IJO”, the participants will have a visual representation of their bodies exhibited in real time on the FIESP building. Dance to tell who you are.

DUMBTYPE

LOVERS
Computer-controlled, five-channel video/sound installation with five video projectors, eight-channel sound system, and slide projectors […] As an image, a pair of lovers often suggests a castle of exclusion. With the sexual liberation of the last few decades, the word now has more to do with physical coupling than with the sublimity of “true love.” AIDS has added a new dimension of wariness to this pairing. The life-size dancers in Lovers are drained of life. Projected onto the black walls of a square room, the naked figures have a spectral quality. Their movements are simple and repetitive. Back and forth, they walk and run with animal grace. Their actions become familiar over time, so that it is a surprise when two of the translucent bodies come together in a virtual embrace. These ostensible lovers–more overlapping than touching–are not physically entwined.

bernd hopfengaertner

BELIEF SYSTEMS
Facial micro expressions last less than a second and are almost impossible to control. They are hard wired to the emotional activity in the brain which can be easily captured using specially developed technological devices. Free will is now in question as the science exposes decision-making as an emotional process rather than a rational one. This ability to read emotions technologically result in a society obsessed with their emotional reactions. Emotions, convictions and beliefs which usually remain hidden, now become a public matter. “Belief systems” is a video scenario about a society that responds to the challenges of modern neuroscience by embracing these technological possibilities to read, evaluate and alter peoples behaviours and emotions.

EJtech

Liquid MIDI
An experimental modular textile interface for sonic interactions, exploring aesthetics and morphology on contemporary interaction design. Trigger  pads and fader board are screen printed modules focused on AV performances, allowing the performer to build its set up regarding its needs.

MICHAEL BURTON

Astronomical Bodies

Astronomical Bodies is based on the research of Dr. Terence Kee of the University of Leeds. He proposes that that a reactive form of phosphorus arrived on the early Earth via meteorite impacts. His research found that phosphorus from space was more suitable for the chemical reactions to develop complex life. Astronomical Bodies reverses this process and tries to transform phosphorus harvested from the body — in the form of kidney stones and urine — into manmade meteorites. Rather than the traditional idea of transpermia addressed in a host of science fiction writings and films, Astronomical Bodies proposes that the galactic transferal of life-promoting chemicals is a natural process that we can facilitate.

RUAIRI GLYNN

루아리 글린
Performative Ecologies
Each one of the four crude and very technically appearing devices is fitted with a punctually attached, luminous rod of fibreglass, which moves back and forth arrhythmically and freely. This installation’s poetry lies in the choreography of the little robots. They continuously try to gain the observers attention and impress him by waving their luminous tails. They recognise the reactions and movements of their human audience, learn from failure and share their experience with their robotic neighbours – a social structure of humans and machines.
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THEODORE SPYROPOULOS

BEHAVIOURAL COMPLEXITY

Design Research Laboratory (AADRL) and the experimental design studio Minimaforms examining a behavior-based agenda that engages experimental forms of material and social interaction. Cybernetic and systemic thinking through seminal forms of prototyping and experimentation will situate the work through continued experiments that have manifested since the early 1950s as maverick machines, architectures and computational practices exploring the generative potential of self-regulating phenomena as proto-architectural environments. Through explicit models of interactions, observable patterns and proto-animalistic agency; the research will discuss the capacity of these systems to evolve, adapt and self-structure through computation.

Yihan LI

Since the emergence of time as a concept, the circle has been a graphic representation that registers and measures the passing of seconds, minutes, hours, and even decades. . . . The torus may be seen as a three-dimensional form utilized to represent time as it travels through a cyclic loop. The geometric shape of the torus speaks of duration, of looped time, and of transformations along and in time. In this project, Boolean operations between varying tori in multiple dimensions indicate the interaction between durations—possibly time in addition to time, or interactions diluted by time—that reveal a new architectural realm featuring free curves which direct visitors’ movements inside flowing spaces. People will lose the perception of direction or time and find themselves worshipping in open and serene volumes.

Joy Division

The Eternal
[Verse 1]
Procession moves on, the shouting is over
Praise to the glory of loved ones now gone
Talking aloud as they sit round their tables
Scattering flowers washed down by the rain
Stood by the gate at the foot of the garden
Watching them pass like clouds in the sky
Try to cry out in the heat of the moment
Possessed by a fury that burns from inside
[Verse 2]
Cry like a child, though these years make me older
With children my time is so wastefully spent
A burden to keep, though their inner communion
Accept like a curse an unlucky deal
Played by the gate at the foot of the garden
My view stretches out from the fence to the wall
No words could explain, no actions determine
Just watching the trees and the leaves as they fall

MVRDV

Paradise City
MVRDV’s The Imprint is part of the larger Paradise City complex of 6 buildings in total, which will provide a full suite of entertainment and hotel attractions less than a kilometre away from South Korea’s largest airport. Given the proposed programme of the 2 buildings – a nightclub and indoor theme park – the client required a design with no windows, yet one that still integrated with the other buildings in the complex.

Thomas Heatherwick

Seed Cathedral
shanghai world expo uk pavilion
The cathedral‘s architecture was an elaboration of Heatherwick’s 2003 work of the Sitooterie II in Essex, United Kingdom. The initial design strategy for the UK Pavilion established three aims to meet the Foreign Commonwealth Office’s key expectation that the pavilion should become one of the five most popular attractions at the Expo, but built using half the budget of other Western nations. The first aim was to design a pavilion whose architecture was a direct manifestation of what it was exhibiting. The second idea was to ensure a significant area of open public space around it so visitors could relax and choose either to enter the pavilion building, or see it clearly from a calm, non-queuing vantage point. And thirdly, it would be unique among the hundreds of other competing pavilions, events and programmes.

Mathieu Merlet Briand

Google red marble

Digital native et issu d’une famille d’agriculteur, Mathieu s’intéresse à l’influence des technologies sur la perception de notre réalité contemporaine. Il s’interroge sur la matérialité d’internet et ses représentations. Il cherche à traduire l’expérience du web surfer, l’imagination de l’internaute face à ce flux infini d’informations.
Dans ses projets se dégagent de façon récurrente des questions environnementales. Inspiré par la lecture de l’essai philosophique d’Ariel Kyrou « Google God » de 2010, il interroge cette image presque divine associés aux géants du web.
Il utilise comme médium les big datas. Via ses algorithmes qu’il développe, par des processus de recyclage et des analogies à la nature, il façonne des flux de données afin d’en créer des matérialisations tangibles. Abstractions, reliques, cristallisations ou fragment du World Wide Web, son travail protéiforme se matérialise principalement en sculptures et installations multimédia.
Influencé autant par l’histoire de l’abstraction, les artistes du Land Art, que par les Nouveaux Réalistes, ses créations sont associées au Culture Digital, au mouvement Post-Digital ou Post-Internet Art.

 

Jason Middlebrook

Джейсон Миддлбрук
Falling Water

[…] Middlebrook’s work consistently references art-historical traditions, styles, and movements. For instance, his sculptures crafted from hardwood planks, which he began in 2008 after relocating from New York City to Hudson, New York, feature painted abstractions. They are collisions of nature, art-making, and history that exemplify the artist’s approach.

Daniel Robert Hunziker

Sperre
Known for his special relationship with space and architectonic practices, Hunziker’s work uses structures and configurations to reveal visions, or fractions, of reality. At von Bartha, the artist transforms the gallery into a parcours – creating new, surprising spatial references, merging object and sculpture, and enabling opportunities for chance-encounter and discovery. more

NONOTAK STUDIO

DAYDREAM V.02

DAYDREAM is an audiovisual installation that generates space distortions. Relationship between space and time, accelerations, contractions, shifts and metamorphosis have been the lexical field of the project. This installation aimed at establishing a physical connection between the virtual space and the real space, blurring the limits and submerging the audience into a short detachment from reality. Lights generate abstract spaces while sounds define the echoes of virtual spaces. Daydream is an invitation to contemplation. The frontality of the installation leads the visitors to a passive position.

LAB[AU]

f5x5x5
f5x5x5 is a kinetic light sculpture conceived of and realized by the belgian design studio lab[au]. the project was most recently installed in the basilique de saint denis in paris for nuit blanche 2009. the design consists of fixed and kinetic aluminum frames that can move randomly or be programmed for use as a low resolution display. the piece is designed as a framework, taking inspiration from software development
frameworks. in the case of the project, the framework is a five by five module which is repeated five times
to create the final form. one side of the work is white, while the other is black. the 125 pixel screen works on binary language and can transform captured data from the physical environment into kinetic actions.

GOLAN LEVIN AND ZACHARY LIEBERMAN

Reface [Portrait Sequencer]

Reface [Portrait Sequencer] by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman (2007) is a surreal video mash-up that composes endless combinations of its visitors’ faces. Based on the Victorian “Exquisite Corpse” parlor game, the Reface installation records and dynamically remixes brief video slices of its viewers’ mouths, eyes and brows. Reface uses face-tracking techniques to allow automatic alignment and segmentation of its participants’ faces. As a result, visitors to the project can move around freely in front of the display without worrying about lining up their face for the system’s camera. The video clips recorded by the project are “edited” by the participants’ own eye blinks. Blinking also triggers the display to advance to the next set of face combinations. Through interactions with an image wholly constructed from its own history of being viewed, Reface makes possible a new form of inventive play with one’s own appearance and identity. The resulting kinetic portraiture blends the personalities and genetic traits of its visitors to create a “generative group portrait” of the people in the project’s locale.

Matthias Zwicker, Wojciech Matusik, Fredo Durand, and Hanspeter Pfister

Automultiscopic 3D displays
Automultiscopic 3D displays allow a large number of viewers to experience 3D content simultaneously without the hassle of special glasses or head gear. This display uses a dense array of 216 video projectors to generate images with high angular density over a wide field of view. As users move around the display, their eyes smoothly transition from one view to the next. The display is ideal for displaying life-size human subjects, as it allows for natural personal interactions with 3D cues such as eye-gaze and spatial hand gestures.

SEIKO MIKAMI

Desire of Codes

This interactive installation consisting of three parts is set up in YCAM’s Studio A, a space that is normally used for theatre performances.
A large number of devices resembling tentacles with built-in small cameras are placed across a huge wall (Part 1), while six robotic “search arms” equipped with cameras and projectors are suspended from the ceiling (Part 2). Each device senses with insect-like wriggling movements the positions and movements of visitors, and turns toward detected persons in order to observe their actions. In addition, a giant round-shaped screen that looks like an insect’s compound eye is installed in the back of the exhibition space (Part 3). Visual data transmitted from each camera, along with footage recorded by surveillance cameras installed at various places around the world, are stored in a central database, and ultimately projected in complex images mixing elements of past and present, the venue itself and points around the globe, onto the screen. The compound eye visualizes a new reality in which fragmentary aspects of space and time are recombined, while the visitor’s position as a subject of expression and surveillance at once indicates the new appearances of human corporeality and desire.

Chris Klapper & Patrick Gallagher

Symphony in D Minor

‘Symphony in D Minor’ is an interactive sound and video installation on an epic scale. A thunderstorm contained within a series of large hand cast resin sculptures, each individual form is a unique instrument hanging from the ceiling. Suspended just within reach and activated by touch, the viewer sets the symphony in motion by pushing the forms through the air to trigger the various sound elements of the storm. Sensors relay individual recordings of thunder, lightning, wind and rain with alternating intensities to a full-scale sound system. Acting as both conductor and musician, the viewer creates an evolving composition out of atmospheric sounds, forging an environment that envelops the audience. Housed within each piece are 2 video projectors employing mapping software to evenly fill the surface of the forms. Like giant illuminated pendulums each sculpture radiates video projections that in their dormant state display abstractions of water droplets and slow moving clouds. As the sensors detect movement different ranges initiate more visual elements of the storm. Once activated, the form then shifts to a swirling torrent of clouds.

ELLEN JANTZEN

Эллен Янцен
Disturbing the Spirits

Disturbing The Spirits, explores the photographers recent interest in the healing power of nature. In her series’ statement, the St. Louis-born photographer questions, “As human actions impact the natural environment, can artists heal nature? Does art bring special powers to the table? If so, what are they? What is ‘art’? What is ‘nature’? What needs healing?”

Joon Y. Moon

Augmented Shadow
File Festival

Augmented Shadow is a design experiment producing an artificial shadow effect through the use of tangible objects, blocks, on a displayable tabletop interface. Its goal is to offer a new type of user-experience. The project plays on the fact that shadows present distorted silhouettes depending on the light. Augmented Shadows take the distortion effect into the realm of fantasy. Shadows display below the objects according to the physics of the real world. However, the shadows themselves transform the objects into houses, occupied by shadow creatures. By moving the blocks around the table the user sets off series of reactions within this new fantasy ecosystem. In this installation, the shadows exist both in a real and a virtual environment simultaneously. It thus brings augmented reality to the tabletop by way of a tangible interface. The shadow is an interface metaphor connecting the virtual world and users. Second, the unexpected user experience results from manipulating the users’ visual perceptions, expectations, and imagination to inspire re-perception and new understanding. Therefore, users can play with the shadows lying on the boundary between the real, virtual, and fantasy. Augmented Shadow utilizes this unique interface metaphor for interactive storytelling. Maximizing the magical amusement of AR, it is embedding an ecosystem where imaginary objects and organic beings co-exist while each of them influences on each other’s life-cycle, even though it is not in use by users. Light and shadow play critical roles in this world’s functions causing chain reactions between virtual people, trees, birds, and houses. A set of tangible blocks allows users to participate in the ecosystem. Users can influence on the system by playing with the blocks or observe the changes of the shadows as if kids were playing with an ant farm.

VOLKER KUCHELMEISTER

transmutation
In the weird and wonderful world of humanoidquantum mechanics, dimensional transmutation describes a phenomena which changes the state of a parameter by adding dimensions to its dimensionless condition. This experimental film applies this principle to visualize the complex interactions between atmosphere and climate. It utilizes a six-dimensional framework, comprised of regular space-time augmented with climate data collected between 1993 and 2011. Changes in global tropospheric temperature, mean sea level, and atmospherical co2 concentration are mapped onto the color palette, shape, and stereoscopic depth of a video clip, depicting a low-lying shoreline in Indonesia, threatened by rising sea levels. The film begins ‘flat’, but over time, with increasing co2 concentration in the atmosphere, its stereoscopic depth expands, and the landscape opens up to the observer, while temperature and sea-level changes modify color and shape.