EGO

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival

The mirror stage in psychology explains how the Ego forms through objectification, where one’s visual appearance comes into conflict with emotional experience, a concept called ‘alienation‘ by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The interactive installation EGO reenacts and reverses this process by distorting the mirror image based on the user’s movements, highlighting the tension between the real and the symbolic, the Ego and the It, subject and object.

Bio

Klaus Obermaier is an interdisciplinary artist, director and composer who creates innovative works in the performing arts, music and installations using new media. Stefano D’Alessio researches social issues induced by the internet and explores how the web and its derivatives influence human behavior and the body. Martina Menegon creates intricate assemblages of physical and virtual elements, exploring the contemporary self and its hybrid corporeality.

Distortions of The Past

FILE 2024 | Aesthetic Synthetics
International Electronic Language Festival
Michael Sadowski (aka derealizer) – Distortions of The Past – Austria

Fractal elements that resemble cosmic structures evoke the illusion of traveling through a fractal universe. Rules, in the form of prompts, and chance interact with each other to create a visual fantasy.

Bio

Using Stable Diffusion, a visual synthesizer, the artist turns fantasies into videos using just a PC, similar to the invention of printing 600 years ago. Exploring the interplay between software algorithms that create visual worlds and the artist’s mind guiding this process is incredibly exciting. Unlike traditional cinema, there is no ‘reality’ or humans involved, making it a satisfying medium for creating visual art.

Credits

Visuals: Michael Sadowski
Music: Distortions of the Past by Dreamstate Logic

Cloud Pink
FILE FESTIVAL

The installation invites participants to “touch the pink clouds” drifting on a giant fabric screen suspended in the air.
Lying down on a hill with your pupils filled with the endless blue sky, perspective of your eyesight suddenly gets distorted and clouds drift at the tip of your nose. You stretch your arms up to the sky to touch the clouds but can’t reach. Another world right above your head, clouds.

IN
In IN (2003) an actress remains motionless for an hour in a display window filled with water. The distortion to her senses caused by the environment she is in makes her go into a trance. The sounds of her breathing and movement are amplified by microphones.

ad/ab Atom

Kurokawa then analyses, filters and distorts this data into an artistic rendering of an atomic space in which the laws of quantum mechanics would theoretically be visible. “The term ‘ad’ in the title means ‘to/toward’ etymologically as a prefix in words of Latin origin and ‘ab’ means ‘away from'”. he explains. “It is recombinant of neologism ‘adatom/abatom’ which means ‘to atom/from atom’, where the laws governing nature blur“.

sofi

in analysis of the modern skyscraper there is traditionally an aesthetic agenda that localizes itself in a “shoes” or “hat” location. The tower typology has ignored the possibility of a center distortion. This distortion acts as an aesthetic element as well as an organizational(programmatic) locator. By designing from the middle out there is a chance for the building to better blend with its context by keeping the processional elements in the center. Entrance and roof conditions mimic their tower brothers and give a moments rest in the exuberance of design. This proposal creates a center distortion and layers form through a simulation of gravity and the“claspyness” of the outer skin. The inner void acts as a way of creating a Secretary oriented office program rather than a traditional first floor security, freeing up the center of the building to the public. The project looks to rationalize itself through components rather than a monolithic form.

Mens SS 2020
“After the scene shifted from a selection of 2D garments, removed to reveal Browne’s brilliant designs below, the show began in earnest. The looks, as gleefully playful as ever, took on elements of Browne’s typical offerings and elevated them to the level of supreme costume design. Several imposing silhouettes recalled dresses worn by Antoinette-era aristocracy, with gargantuan trousers and shapely sportcoats crafted to resemble distorted Ivy League staples. Elsewhere, pleated skirts emerged as a prime trouser replacement, with cropped jackets and seersucker jockstraps to introduce a sporty motif.” Jake Silbert

The way we were
Not only does Arcangelo Sassolino transform failure into art, but he manages to make the art of failing a profound part of the art of living. He goes even further in the awareness of risk. He is aware that his experiments may not hold up to the forces that he himself puts in place but this possible collateral damage wants to represent an additional value, becoming precisely the existential metaphor of the concepts of risk and failure. His installations explore the behavior and mechanical limits of matter, he forces their characteristics to distort their shape, gravity, pressure, friction, statics, and of each possibility Sassolino contemplates the risks of collapse with its precise timing and programming.

理查德·杜邦
리처드 듀퐁
Mr. Dupont makes these sculptures based on a full-body scan of his own body. He says viewers relate to them like they’re three dimensional illusions: The viewer walks around the figures and gets all these different perspectives as the surfaces change. That’s one way the distortions are interesting, because no two perspectives are the same.

岑侃倫
The Undercurrent
file festival
In the installation, the distorted image projected on the tabletop is reflected in the cylindrical mirror. While one sequence is distorted and reminiscent of a dreamlike state or the hazy inner workings of the mind, the other is clear and in proportion, which enables us to decipher the anamorphic image, thus to confront the “undercurrent” in our mind.

DARK DISTORTIONS
‘Dark Distortions’ – was inspired by Euclid, a forthcoming ESA mission to study the mysterious nature of dark matter and dark energy, which is due to launch in mid-2022. Dark matter is thought to account for 85% of the matter in the universe. Visible stuff within galaxies – such as stars and planets and dust – has insufficient gravitational pull to prevent galaxies from disintegrating as they rotate. But galaxies don’t fly apart in this way, so astrophysicists proposed that they must contain “dark” matter that has sufficient mass to keep galaxies intact – but which has never been seen directly.

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ТЕМНЫЕ ИСКАЖЕНИЯ
«Dark Distortions» – был вдохновлен Евклидом, предстоящей миссией ЕКА по изучению загадочной природы темной материи и темной энергии, запуск которой запланирован на середину 2022 года. Считается, что темная материя составляет 85% материи во Вселенной. Видимое вещество внутри галактик – например, звезды, планеты и пыль – обладает недостаточным гравитационным притяжением, чтобы предотвратить распад галактик при их вращении. Но галактики не разлетаются таким образом, поэтому астрофизики предположили, что они должны содержать «темную» материю, обладающую достаточной массой, чтобы сохранить галактики в целости, но которую никогда не видели напрямую.

Valla claimed to have collected a series of 60 “surrealistic” images, or that, at least, give that impression, during a long period “playing” in Google Earth.“The images are a kind of mirrors for a fun house.They are strange illusions and reflections of the real ”Despite the strong distortions, which easily resemble a surrealist painting, the images of the work do not have any manipulation of tools like Photoshop, for example.”The images are screenshots of Earth with basic color adjustments”, “This is a construction of 3D maps on two-dimensional bases, creating these fabulous and unintended distortions”.

Riflessioni su una scatola di vetro
“Riflessioni su una scatola di vetro” occupa l’intero piano terra dell’edificio progettato da jean nouvel, generando un ambiente coinvolgente e accattivante suddiviso tra due spazi adiacenti della galleria. Nel primo volume, una perdita fabbricata nel soffitto genera singole goccioline d’acqua, che poi cadono da 12 punti specificati nel tetto della struttura. Ogni goccia viene quindi catturata in basso in un secchio robotico rosso che si muove in sincronia con l’acqua che cade. Allo stesso tempo, un enorme schermo LED appeso all’interno della galleria adiacente invita i visitatori a vedere il soffitto di nouvel dalla prospettiva del secchio, proiettando un’immagine ondulata e distorta.

Parasitic endeavours
Simon Christoph Krenn’s 3D animation, Parasitic Endeavours, initially started out as the creative wanting to explore distorted perspectives on human evolution. “I think my main inspiration came from nature and its creative forces themselves. I used to study zoology at university and was especially fascinated by evolutionary biology and the development of animal morphologies. I realized the video’s strange and somehow creepy potential and decided to push the animation even more into this direction.”

Versus
Elaborated by the French/Japanese duo Nonotak, ‘VERSUS’ is an immersive A/V experience that questions the relationship between 360° image and sound. The viewer finds himself submerged, at the centre of a perfectly geometric environment that constantly redefines space by breaking distances between projection, audience and screen. The work gives the illusion of a new type of architecture, a world created from distortions that shatter boundaries, and that brings the idea of infinity.

Distortions in Spacetime
In a giant star’s final moments, atoms compress to a point where density becomes infinite, time stretches to a stop and the gravitational field is so strong that not even light can escape: a black hole. But the force that creates this dark shadow also spews out a supernova explosion of matter that can eventually coalesce to form planets, plants and people. In Distortions in Spacetime, visitors will see themselves reflected in this matter and will begin to understand the cosmic connection between black holes, dying stars and our very existence.

Your double my double our ghost
The installation acts a space for the consideration of intimacy and meditation– both alone and with others that may share the space – through the merging of the viewer’s own reflections articulated through a composition of shifting light and emerging sounds which fill an otherwise dark chamber. Functioning similarly to the classic funfair mirror– the flexible silver two-way mirror sheeting forming an ethereal hanging centrepiece– the work invites the viewer to consider representations of themselves which appear distorted and transient, and which merge with those around them to form ‘new presences’. In this sense the viewer may see themselves multiplied or doubled with another viewer, or find themselves alone in a rare moment of literal reflection providing a contemplative space or eliciting a hallucinatory fantasy bringing forth ideas in neuroscience around the Self and Other.

Jonattas Poltronieri, Luis Mello, Pedro Venetucci & Rofli Sanches
Phantom Limb

Just like the original box, the installation is a rectangular unit where the user inserts his arm and is urged to move it in different ways. The similarity with the original object disappears as, instead of having a mirror to provide the image that motivates the interaction, there is a screen that mediates the user’s view and the place where his arm actually is. The displayed image of the user’s arm can be reversed, distorted and coloured, among several modifications to simulate in a rich way the strangeness of not having control over a member, and to question whether what is seen is an accurate portrayal of the real body. Although deep and subjective, the topic addressed in this experience is easy and accessible in its interaction, offering various sensory feedbacks to the user. Through it, it is proposed that we experience and reflect upon the disconnection between thought and body, intention and action, sensation and reality.

FILE SAO PAULO 2015

Lost in Computation
A multilingual conversation between two Chatbot AIs (Artificial Intelligence) trained in Swedish and Italian, translated through Google Translate, exploring how the multiple layers of computation in today’s digital landscape distorts our communication.

Lost Dimension
Lost Dimension Non-dimensional Cities is an immersive cinematic experience in which participants journey through an endlessly unfolding virtual cityscape that expands over all axes. This dimensionless cityscape is constructed from a large collection of point clouds and sounds. While the user is standing on the controller pod and navigates through this virtual world, a sense of physical instability takes over and the platform becomes an anchor to hold on to. The building blocks of the world are generated from depth map information and panoramic photographs obtained from Google Street View’s API. Depending on the user’s position in the virtual world these blocks are dynamically repositioned on a three-dimensional grid. By subtle manipulation of motion and sound, perspective distortion and shifts in balance Lost Dimension unquestionably re-calibrates the viewer’s perception of dimensionality.

Remnants

Remnants is an installation, comprised of two individual sculptures, Anatomy and Lacuna, which explores this evolving symbiosis between the mechanical and the biological become. Anatomy and Lacuna are constructed of aluminium, both containing areas of uncertain space. Anatomy contains a plane of black viscous matter and Lacuna, a black void, creating a tension between the two sculptures. The work draws on diagrammatic anatomical and architectural models, distorting scale and hijacking visual languages, creating an undetermined terrain where the purpose of our made objects is undefined.

TIMÉE
In roughly 360BC, Plato shared his dialogue Timaeus, in which he imagined the universe as a geocentric system, including a concept called Music of the Spheres where each planet had its own sonic tone based on its unique orbital revolution. The entire system was divided into an octave, a fifth, a fourth, and tone, and as all the planets revolved around the Earth, the solar system would comprise a perfect musical score.

slow drop
Slow Drop captures a distorted and dreamlike image of the city. Everything seems to become clear and natural. Slow Drop is free, fluid separate from the real world and all the limitations. It is a singular and pure form, as if it had come from another universe. It gives way to sleep, to contemplation.

daemon
The reactive audio-visual installation Daemon (in collaboration with Hansi Raber) analyzes the never-sleeping and permanent alertness of an artificial intelligence. Consisting of three semi-translucent, spatial shifted surfaces, the installation represents a solid wall when entering the space. When no visitor is in the room, the installation is in balance and visualizes infinite planned tasks and processes: rational beauty. When visitors enter the room, the installation reacts and the perfect procedure gets more and more distorted. When the visitor walks into, through and behind the surfaces, his silhouette gets merged with the projected visuals and absorbed by the surfaces.

flower

Flower presents a series of distorted flower images which have still been recognised as “flower” by a computer vision.

Glitch art
Finding his own niche between new media arts and conceptualism, Adam Ferriss creates unique digital coding that manipulates, distorts, and engineers images into psychedelic terrains. At times, his technicolor abstractions feel organic despite their technological roots – an ambiguous craft born of the RGB Tricolor separation process and pixel sorting algorithms he so carefully employs. Using these “procedural mechanisms,” Ferriss initiates iterative changes in light and pixel structure of his given source material – creating a literally infinite array of compositional possibilities that grapple with human perception during an era of ubiquitous manufacture.

a little death

Despite the broader reference to the traditional pictorial genre of “still life”, disseminated from the Dutch and Spanish painters of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, ‘Still life’ from 2001 and ‘A little death’ from 2002 refer especially to the painting of transient elements of the French Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) to discuss the distortion and inexorability of time, the finitude of life or, above all, the interdependence between life and death. The title makes a direct reference to the expression with which the French philosopher Georges Bataille defined the orgasm: ‘une petite mort‘.

reflektor distortion

The installation reflektor distortion – conceived as a rotating, water-filled basin – is inspired by the shape of a parabolic mirror that ‚rotates‘ water via centrifugal force. The work consists of the three main components mirror, reflection and distortion. Both curve and distortion of the water surface is affected by speed and integrated resistors that generate a permanently new and re-organizing mirror reflection. The water surface will be supplementary distorted via speaker by resonating low sound frequencies. The function of the mirror is hereby eminent: The mirror surface is the medium that reveals reality as distorted reflection. Rising the question of the observed and the real image the installation plays with the artist’s thesis that we all have a permanent distorted perception of reality.

Appearing like ghostly cages which seem to float above the body, Seiran Tsuno’s designs are delicately abstract, distorting and disrupting the human-form. Emphasising the shoulders, chest, and thighs, there is a subtlety to her pieces: they don’t scream and shout but instead sit quietly in their uniqueness […] Creating a base is the first step, which Tsuno then draws on using the 3D pens. As it becomes airborne, the strands of melted plastic ink solidify, before Tsuno removes the base. The result is a piece that has the delicacy of fine jewellery, only in garment form.

简宁汉
מרס קנינגהם
マース·カニングハム
머시 디스 커닝햄
МЕРС КАННИНГЕМ
« Scenario » de Merce Cunningham
Rei Kawakubo’s humorous costumes toy with the idea of physical distortions, such as humps and big rear ends. They are in mostly vertical blue stripes on white, or in pale green and white-checkered patterns. For much of the dance, five or six dancers twist and pose, each in his or her own space, with a rush of additional dancers to the stage toward the end of the performance. The bold electronic musical score is by Takehisa Kosugi.

Fragments

Almost two hundred identical, small mirrors are arranged in a grid to form a flat, homogenous surface. Hung against the wall, the mirrors are closely spaced and apparently static; but they possess the ability to move in harmony with one another. Approaching the artwork, the individual mirrors turn together to face the onlooker, following as he or she moves. The plane of the surface distorts into varying, three-dimensional forms — perhaps a wave, or a curve, or a circle. The reflection becomes fragmented and the apparently inanimate object becomes akin to something organic and alive

Souvenir
Being self-lighted, at the same time that it rotates on its own axis, the object distorts that which it apparently seeks to represent. Therefore, the presence of an inner light, associated with the rapid movement produced by the globe’s motorization, is responsible for abstracting any border line. By fostering the internal luminosity of a planet, which is pure darkness, the work relegates the value of representation to a second level and gives rise to a set of ideas disconnected from the real. In this sense, Souvenir is a means of reconsidering in what way the demarcations that define the geopolitical scenario of this tiny globe are lost in the Earth’s infinite rotativity.

musings on a glass box
‘Musings on a glass box’ occupies the entire ground floor of the jean nouvel-designed building, generating an immersive and captivating environment split between two adjacent gallery spaces. In the first volume, a fabricated leak in the ceiling generates single droplets of water, which then fall from 12 specified points in the structure’s roof. Each drip is then caught below in a red robotic bucket that moves in synchronization with the falling water. At the same time, an enormous LED screen hung within the neighboring gallery invites visitors to view nouvel’s ceiling from the perspective of the bucket, projecting a wavy and distorted image.

Floating Lens
The combination of movement and the reflections of the fresnel lenses, provide an interesting visual experience. When used on the rooftops of Paris, the Haussmanian roofs of the city seem to be seen through a dream. The wind on the lenses lightly distort the surroundings, creating a dream-like environment. Once again, the subtle mix of simple technology and poetic interpretation detach the conscious mind of reality. Leroy compares his project to an intriguing game of fluidity: “everything seems to breathe: no beginning, no end, just a stream.”

Glitch art’ is a new genre which is now growing very popular within the digital art age. A glitch is certainly what many of us has experienced at least once in their life you are surrounded by technology. It is a temporary fault in the system and produces a distorted image. According to Iman Moradi, who wrote a brief account on glitch art, defined that there are two types of glitch art. One being ‘Pure Glitch’ where it was produced at random, real, and appropriated. Where as Szauder’s work classifies into ‘Glitch-alike’ because of the deliberate nature where the works were planned and designed, making them artificial.

Automatic Piano
Inspired by the work of James Tenney, György Ligeti, Charlemagne Palestine, and Conlon Nancarrow, Seth Horvitz’s Eight Studies for Automatic Piano makes use of simple, computer-aided compositional processes to test the limits of human perception and machine precision. It relies on a bare minimum of technical means to explore notions of temporal distortion, iterative process, and elegant complexity.

Neoformans
NE0F0RMANS___fungi scattering test. Music by Plaid – Its (alt-land Remix) combined with distorted cicada field recordings.

CIRCLE BLUE
Influenced by the seascapes and skies of Southern California, Valentine was an early pioneer of using industrial plastics and resin to produce monumental sculptures that reflect and distort the light and space that surround them. For Valentine, a smooth surface was the whole point of the work and he did not want it to look old. While he was teaching a course in plastics technology at UCLA in 1965, he wanted to produce a polyester resin in large volumes that would not crack from curing.

coagulate
Mihai Grecu’s video work Coagulate is a visually immersive journey into a world of water which behaves against the laws of nature. This choreography of fluids explores absence, presence and aquatic distortions. In this world, man breathes water and fish breath air. Water seems impervious to gravity. Rather than narrative, Coagulate is based on sensation and atmosphere.

卢克•杰拉姆
люк Джеррам
לוק ג’ראם
maya
Майя – пиксельная скульптура. Она установлена на платформе 1 на вокзале Бристоль Темпл Мидс (Bristol Temple Meads). Автор скульптуры – Luke Jerram. Моделью послужила его дочь Майя. В течение дня, когда вокруг много людей, она может смешаться с толпой. Издалека Майя выглядит как живая девочка, но когда вы к ней приближаетесь, изображение на глазах деформируется и искажается, проступают пиксельные квадратики. Чтобы создать эту скульптуру, девочку Майю сканировали с помощью Xbox Kinect в Университете Западной Англии, где её папа работает старшим научным сотрудником. Скульптура вырезана из листов алюминия и обклеена более чем 5000 маленьких (12мм) квадратных цветных наклеек.

Spanish artist Sergio Prego was born in San Sebastian in 1969. Prego works in many different fields of mediaincluding video, photography, performance art, installation, and sound. His work attempts to transform therelationship between space and time in order to distort the way we comprehendthem.

فريدريك هيمان
弗雷德里克·海曼
פרדריק היימן
フレデリックヘイマン
ФРЕДЕРИК ХЕЙМАН
His work, humorous and surreal, helps to erase boundaries between photography, graphic design and space shaping. With many distortions (real or digital), not to mention strange and imposing installations, Heyman creates a world both unstructured and fascinating. Part of a new generation of photographers, his aim seems to give birth to a new kind of collaboration between all the arts, definitely modern and complex.

distortion
Human, ultra human or a poetic of deformation? Observing series “Distortions” by young photographer Hickey Heart (23 years old), is like taking a disturbing trip into our online lives 24h/24h, among small epiphanies, existential dilemmas and everyday solitudes.

Flying Stone No.2
Zhan Wang’s most celebrated work to date is his series of “artificial rocks” – stainless steel replicas of the much-revered “scholar’s rocks” traditionally found in Chinese gardens. The mirrored surfaces of these often monumental objects absorb the viewer and its surrounding environment, enticing them to become part of the work, an abstraction and distortion of reality, thus creating a visual interplay between positions of tradition and modernity.

Embrace in Progress
Embrace in Progress explores conflicted feelings of shared intimacy. It is inspired by personal and cultural experiences where human contact is not commonly practiced in social interaction. The daunting and unfamiliar proximity of being captured in someone’s arms distorts one’s sense of time. The project was inspired by slit-scan photography and uses depth sensors to capture a series of intimate embraces. These 3D printed pieces recreate the act of embracing and are represented in a static form by the flow of movement twisted because of time.

Cloud Pink
FILE FESTIVAL
Lying down on a hill with your pupils filled with the endless blue sky, perspective of your eyesight suddenly gets distorted and clouds drift at the tip of your nose. You stretch your arms up to the sky to touch the clouds but can’t reach. Another world right above your head, clouds. Today, I visualize my colorful cloud of words right in front of your eyes. Touch the pink clouds drifting on a giant fabric screen, reminisce your childhood clouds of dreams. I spent countless sleepless nights just to realize my unproductive and only romantic cloud of words. But, isn’t it nice if we could feel the clouds at our fingertips?

Untitled
Spanish artist Sergio Prego was born in San Sebastian in 1969. Prego works in many different fields of media including video, photography, performance art, installation, and sound. His work attempts to transform the relationship between space and time in order to distort the way we comprehend them.

واين ماكغريغور
韦恩·麦格雷戈
웨인 맥그리거
ויין מקגרגור
ウェイン·マクレガー
Уэйн МакГрегор
rAndom International
FAR
Wayne McGregor’s anatomy-defying choreography and ground-breaking approach across dance, science, film, music, visual art and technology has fuelled a string of truly unique works. FAR is no exception. Inspired by the controversial Age of Enlightenment, FAR mines an era that first placed ‘a body in question’. Ten incredible dancers confront the distortions, sensuality and feeling of the 18th Century‘s searing contemporary sensibility to a haunting score by the critically-acclaimed composer Ben Frost. Staged in a mesmerizing environment of shadow and light (rAndom International, Lucy Carter), object and film (Moritz Junge, Ravi Deepres), FAR binds cutting edge design with choreography made from a radical cognitive research process.

埃米尔·阿尔萨莫拉
ЭМИЛЬ АЛЬЗАМОРА
“The human form is a constant within my work. I often exaggerate or distort it to reveal an emotional or physical situation, or to tell a story. Limitation and potential are as human as the flesh, yet hardly as tangible. In my works I strive to make visible this interaction.”

Nicolas Deshayes’ sculptures use materials such as annodised aluminum and vacuum formed plastic to embrace the glossy aesthetics of 21st century design. Despite their emphasis on slick industrial surfaces and physicality, Deshayes’ works maintain a human presence in the form of glutinously rich, bodily allusions, engaging with the materials in ways that distort the ordinary.