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Lu Yang

Delusional Crime and Punishment

Who created life? I think this is the question everyone has been asking themselves since childhood? At least I have many doubts, the subjective feeling of the existence of consciousness allows us to face the world from that source. Why do humans eat like this for energy? Why not get energy in other ways? Why do you need energy to exercise? Why is this so joyful and so painful? What is the need for pain, pleasure, fear, excitement, etc.?Upon careful analysis, it appears that the source of many desires comes from the design of our physical structure. If God designed human beings, why was he designed that way and why was he designed as a biological mechanism for sin and hell? Why do human beings have desires because of such a physical structure and even they don’t understand self-control, they have sins, and they have to go to another hell of punishment system to atone for their sins? Who created this series of systems?

Kevin Cooley

Fallen Water
Fallen Water explores questions about why humans are drawn to waterfalls and flowing water as a source for renewal. Waterfalls imbue subconscious associations with pristine and healthy drinking water, but what happens when the fountain can no longer renew itself? Is the water no longer pure? Cooley’s choice of subject matter strikes a deep chord with current social consciousness and anxieties about contemporary water usage and the drought crisis faced by the American West. Cooley references Blake’s famous quote from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as context for the diametric opposites of the current water conundrum: our deep sense of entitlement to and dire dependence on this precious commodity, coupled with a pervasive obliviousness concerning the sources which supply it. As a way to connect with his personal water use, Cooley hiked into the mountains to see firsthand the snowpack (or lack thereof), streams, and aquifers which feed the water sources supplying his Los Angeles home. This multi-channel installation is an amalgamation of videos made over numerous trips to remote locations in the San Gabriel Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and locales as far away as the San Juan Mountains in Southwestern Colorado. These disconnected video vignettes coalesce, constructing a large water landscape canvasing the gallery walls and floors – reflecting the disparate and widespread origin of Los Angeles’s drinking water. The colorspace within the videos is inverted, turning the water pink, orange and yellow—channeling an altered vision of water—in which something is definitely amiss: a stark reminder of the current water crisis in the state of California.
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maurizio cattelan

blind

It’s an image that evokes a moment in history seared into our collective consciousness. This is “Blind” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. The sculpture of an aircraft spearing a towering monolith recalls the 9/11 attack on New York’s Twin Towers. The simple black pillar carries a heavy meaning. It’s the final artwork in a new Milan exhibit called “Breath Ghosts Blind”.

Ian Cheng

BOB

Cheng’s work explores mutation, the history of human consciousness and our capacity as a species to relate to change. Drawing on principles of video game design, improvisation and cognitive science, Cheng develops live simulations – virtual ecosystems of infinite duration, populated with agents who are programmed with behavioural drives but left to self-evolve without authorial intent, following the unforgiving causality found in nature.

Photo: Andrea Rossetti

Lucid Creates

Futures
Futures uses the optical illusions created by light, sound and mirrors to transport audiences to a place where good things have happened and the future we want exists now. Futures is an immersive space in which audiences experience illusions that can reveal everything from how they process space and time to their perception of consciousness. It is a modular light installation that takes a number of forms. It is shown here as a walkway of mirrors and lights, tunnelling inwards towards a vanishing point.

Daniel Canogar

Loom
Loom showcases abstract animations developed with data from real-time Google Trends. Popular queries appear momentarily as overlaid text before dissolving into a smoky abstraction. These terms are approached with an accidental lyricism —each word appears and disappears in a trail of saturation. Colors within the animation are determined by the prevalence of a specific topic; the more viral the search is online, the warmer the tones become. Stripped from headlines, graphic imagery, and statistics, each phrase inspires a contemplative experience, a chance for the viewer to ruminate on what is streaming through the collective consciousness at any given time. Loom weaves a social fabric, mixing the transcendental with the banal, to present the spirit of our time in generative motion.

Peppercorn

Upload not complete
The work magnifies the process of virtual and real fusion, which is the process of uploading human consciousness to digital space. When the visual perception has been lost, can people still recognize the body through the touch and sound of wind, sound and vibration everywhere? Experiencers use non-visual senses, experience media art, and cooperate with the Taiwanese Non-Visual Aesthetic Education Association to create a digital space where the computer can fully understand the location of the experiencer in the space, allowing the experiencer to listen, move, touch objects, feel the vibration and come to know the space.

EVA PAPAMARGARITI

Liminal Beings
Liminal Beings explores the concept of automaton and the different anthropomorphic forms and functions embedded within its ontology. Automata, since ancient times, have been standing on the verge of two states, developing machinic and human characteristics simultaneously – in reality, and in the collective consciousness. They are trained to execute and learn respective actions and procedures, thus creating an uncanny, awkward state, trapped in limbo between diverse conditions of existence.

Albert Omoss

Undercurrents

“Mostly the fact that I AM a human body. We can live our lives buried in complex abstraction, or in virtual reality, but you can’t separate your consciousness from the fragility of your physical form. Many of my own fears and anxieties revolve around that realization. I would probably say my pieces involving the human body are a kind of self prescribed therapy to deal with my neurosis”.Albert Omoss

Ray Kunimoto

REI – Listening to Silence
This work consists of a jet-black sphere containing 16 speaker units, six loudspeakers suspended from the ceiling, and a cubic structure. It creates an acoustic space by reverberating the sound of water from the sphere and the surrounding environment using four omnidirectional micro- phones installed on both the structure and the loudspeakers. The oceans evaporate, rain falls, and rivers continue to flow forever without any kind of consciousness. REI moves from the conscious to the subconscious by superimposing the sound echoing from one’s own body and the sound of water echoing from the sphere, which is a metaphor for this world.

Shohei Fujimoto

Intagible #Form
In this artwork “intangible #form [2019]”, focusing on how do we see the intangible as tangible using 420 kinetic laser modules. I’ve tried to generate virtual consciousness, presence and behavior of life in this time. And then I’ve been exploring what are we getting the surfacing consciousness and presence from the thing is in front of us or are we giving these to them? I think that when paying attention to consciousness, it could be a trigger to sense that we are human ourself.

Christoph De Boeck

Staalhemel

The intimate topography of the brain is laid out across a grid of 80 steel ceiling tiles as a spatialized form of tapping. The visitor can experience the dynamics of his cognitive self by fitting a wireless EEG interface on his head, that allows him to walk under the acoustic representation of his own brain waves.The accumulating resonances of impacted steel sheets generates penetrating overtones. The spatial distribution of impact and the overlapping of reverberations create a very physical soundspace to house an intangible stream of consciousness.‘Staalhemel’ (‘steel sky’, 2009) articulates the contradictory relationship we entertain with our own nervous system. Neurological feedback makes that the cognitive focus is repeatedly interrupted by the representation of this focus. Concentrated thinking attempts to portray itself in a space that is reshaped by thinking itself nearly every split second.

Refik Anadol

Machine Hallucination
Refik Anadol’s most recent synesthetic reality experiments deeply engage with these centuries-old questions and attempt at revealing new connections between visual narrative, archival instinct and collective consciousness. The project focuses on latent cinematic experiences derived from representations of urban memories as they are re-imagined by machine intelligence. For Artechouse’s New York location, Anadol presents a data universe of New York City in 1025 latent dimensions that he creates by deploying machine learning algorithms on over 100 million photographic memories of New York City found publicly in social networks. Machine Hallucination thus generates a novel form of synesthetic storytelling through its multilayered manipulation of a vast visual archive beyond the conventional limits of the camera and the existing cinematographic techniques. The resulting artwork is a 30-minute experimental cinema, presented in 16K resolution, that visualizes the story of New York through the city’s collective memories that constitute its deeply-hidden consciousness.

Amy Karle

Biofeedback Artwork

Amy Karle connects her body and consciousness to technology to create art, repurposing a Sandin Image Processor as an electrophysiological visualization device. While meditating, Amy Karle inputs her biofeedback into the historically significant Sandin IP analog computer to generate the output of image and sound in real-time. The artwork is both the long-duration performance as well as the experimental video art that is created in the process.

Greg Dunn and Brian Edward

Self-Reflected

Dr. Greg Dunn (artist and neuroscientist) and Dr. Brian Edwards (artist and applied physicist) created Self Reflected to elucidate the nature of human consciousness, bridging the connection between the mysterious three pound macroscopic brain and the microscopic behavior of neurons. Self Reflected offers an unprecedented insight of the brain into itself, revealing through a technique called reflective microetching the enormous scope of beautiful and delicately balanced neural choreographies designed to reflect what is occurring in our own minds as we observe this work of art. Self Reflected was created to remind us that the most marvelous machine in the known universe is at the core of our being and is the root of our shared humanity.

Tod Machover

Death and the Powers

Science fiction and poignant family drama combine in one of the most stunning, cutting-edge operas of the 21st century, with a libretto by former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, coming to the stage of the Winspear Opera House in a production directed by Diane Paulus, designed by Alex McDowell (Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report) and conducted by Nicole Paiement (TDO’s The Lighthouse).This visually spectacular robot pageant by MIT Media Lab’s Tod Machover tells the story of a terminally ill billionaire, sung by Robert Orth, who downloads his consciousness into “the System” and proceeds to use all his powers to persuade his loved ones to join him there. Without bodies, without the possibility of touch, sex, suffering, and death — are we still genuinely human?Explore these existential questions and much more in a piece Variety described as “playful, lyrical and…mesmerizing.” Also starring Joélle Harvey as Miranda, Patricia Risley as Evvy, and Hal Cazalet in his Dallas Opera debut as Nicholas.

EGLE RAKAUSKAITE

The screw

Egle Rakauskaite is a leading Lithuanian artist, prominent on the world scene for her highly individual and memorable works. Born in 1967, she studied painting at Vilnius Academy of Arts and graduated in 1993. Described by critic Lolita Jablonskiene as “a unique artist, who does not follow any current trends of Lithuanian art”, Rakauskaite works in various media (video, performance, photography, making objects), free to associate and assemble them in different configurations as the project demands.In the early years of her career, she made objects out of unconventional and perishable materials such as chocolate, jasmine flowers, human hair, honey and fat. As she states, “these materials were used to protest against paint and canvas. Many critics attributed this interest in unconventional materials and also some of the images I constructed to my interest in feminist art. However, I think that at present the differences between male and female creation are not that visible any more. It is important that the art work opens itself to the consciousness and sub-consciousness of the viewer”.

HERMAN MAAT

Paranoid Panopticum

The viewer activates the «Paranoid Panopticum» by entering its small corridor between two «walls». Recorded through the mirrored wall by a video camera, the viewer’s image is projected onto the opposite wall, where it becomes part of a story freely adapted by Alfred Kreijemborg in his play titled «An Echo Play» (1923), based on the Greek myth of Narcissus. Instead of returning the affections of the nymph Echo, the protagonist falls in love with his own reflection. Like with the image of Narcissus on the water, the viewer’s own reflection appears now – and the viewer observes only himself. The Panopticum, the terminus of a circulatory prison complex, is controlled from a watchtower not visible for the prison inmates. Having consciousness controlled here causes in effect the self-control among the prisoners. The paradox in this experience – control and society’s surrendering to its own mechanisms – forms the basis of Maat’s installation. Whether as the observer or observed, the viewer is consistently extradited to the panoptic omnipresence of his own all-pervading reflection.

ELEVENPLAY + Rhizomatiks Research

24 drones
24 Drones is a video demonstration of the incredible drones made by Rhizomatiks and their ability to move around 3d space in ways never before seen. With intricate sensor systems both on the drones and in the room the drones are constantly checking their surroundings and mapping them in order to move without colliding with each other or a speaker who stands in the middle of the swarm of drones directing them with gestures and movements. The movement of the drones is not only controlled and safer than ever, the drones awareness of their surroundings makes them appear conscious and gives them a sense of personality.

LISA PARK

Лиза Парк
eunoia
“Eunoia” is a performance that uses my brainwaves — collected via EEG sensor– to manipulate the motions of water. It derives from the Greek word “ey” (well) + “nous” (mind) meaning “beautiful thinking”. EEG is a brainwave detecting sensor. It measures frequencies of my brain activity (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, Theta) relating to my state of consciousness while wearing it. The data collected from EEG is translated in realtime to modulate vibrations of sound with using software programs. EEG sends the information of my brain activity to Processing, which is linked with Max/MSP to receive data and generate sound from Reaktor.

Cao Fei

曹斐
ツァオ·フェイ
Чао Фей
Haze and Fog

Cao Fei’s ‘Haze and Fog’ is a new type of zombie movie set in modern China made by one of the most important Chinese artists working today. Working with film, photography, installation and performance Cao Fei probes her personal and cultural relationship to metropolitan China.Rather than positioning activity as good vs evil, Cao Fei’s major new video commission explores how the collective consciousness of people living in the time of what the artist calls “magical metropolises” emerges from seemingly tedious, mundane, day-to-day life. This magic reality is created through a struggle at the tipping point between the visible and the invisible.

Xu Zhen

徐震
Physique of Consciousness
Après une formation au Shanghai Arts & Crafts Institute, il réalise à partir de la fin des années 1990 des vidéos performatives et des installations où il exerce son ironie sur les produits de la société de consommation et du monde de l’art.

CHRISTINA DIMITRIADIS

Oblivions Exercises
“Dimitriadis examined the “remember to forget” principle in the front of the mirror turned back to the viewer. According to Freud, memory-traces have nothing to do with the fact of becoming conscious, “indeed they are often most powerful and most enduring when the process which left them behind was one which never entered consciousness””Barbara Piwowarska

JAKE STOLLERY

Oracle

Oracle is an amalgam of concepts tied together by the common thread of the user interface.To that end, it is a reflection of AI and UI as they exist in society’s consciousness: On first glance masculine, cold and austere; yet muted in its austerity and restrained by a warmth that is undeniably feminine.

REFIK ANADOL

Temporary Immersive Environment Experiments

Temporary Immersive Environment Experiments’ is a research on audio/visual installations by using the state called immersion which is the state of consciousness where an immersant’s awareness of physical self is transformed by being surrounded in an engrossing environment; often artificial, creating a perception of presence in a non-physical world.
In this particular edition, the poetics of light bending is explored. Inspired by Issac Newton’s experiments with light, this installation bends laser light in unpredictable angles to create a architectural light + sound scape. ‘Liminality’ is chosen as a concept in this project,a radical effort to deconstruct the framework of this illusory space and transgress the normal boundaries of the viewing experience to set out to transform the conventional flat cinema projection screen into a three dimensional kinetic and architectonic space of visualisation.

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AZIZ + CUCHER

Synaptic Bliss
Begun in 2003, the series of works collectively known as “SYNAPTIC BLISS” explore ideas of a digital consciousness that allows for the simultaneous perception of multiple perspectives and scales, as well as the blurring of the distinctions between the body and its environment, the exterior and the interior, and the organic and the artificial. The works in this ongoing series include a variety of media, ranging from architectural installations, to video projections and environments, as well as digital prints and hand-woven rugs.