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QUBIT AI: Klaus Obermaier, Stefano D’Alessio & Martina Menegon

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.

Kino

MIT Media Lab, Stanford University
This work explores a dynamic future where the accessories we wear are no longer static, but are instead mobile, living objects on the body. Engineered with the functionality of 18 robotics, this “living” jewelry roams on unmodified clothing, changing location and reconfiguring appearance according to social context and enabling multitude presentations of self. With the addition of sensor devices, they transition into active devices which can react to environmental conditions. They can also be paired with existing mobile devices to become personalized on-body assistants to help complete tasks. Attached to garments, they generate shape-changing clothing and kinetic pattern designs–creating a new, dynamic fashion.
It is our vision that in the future, these robots will be miniaturized to the extent that they can be seamlessly integrated into existing practices of body ornamentation. With the addition of kinetic capabilities, traditionally static jewelry and accessories will start displaying life-like qualities, learning, shifting, and reconfiguring to the needs and preferences of the wearer, also assisting in fluid presentation of self. We envision a new class of future wearables that possess hybrid qualities of the living and the crafted, creating a new on-body ecology for human-wearable symbiosis.

Berenike Corcuera

Berenike Corcuera’s collection was inspired by kirilian photographs of her aura, first captured in Chinatown’s reowned Magic Jewelry. when she lived in New York in 2014. She began studying the electromagnetic field of the human body to understand how to translate the invisible. She began the practice of mandala and colour studies, to understand how metaphysical bodies could be interpreted into physical bodies and contemporary menswear clothing.

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

Hiroshi Ishiguro

Mindar
Революция машин уже пришла в религию – по крайней мере, в Японии. Буддийский храм в городе Киото решил изменить свои практики, чтобы стать ближе к людям, и установил там робота. Твоя роль? Объявляйте проповеди верующим. Робот Миндар ростом почти шесть футов имеет женский голос и был создан в честь буддийского божества милосердия Каннон. Руки, лицо и плечи корпуса робота покрыты силиконом (имитирующим человеческую кожу). Это все. Все остальное состоит из открытых металлических шестерен.

 

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Mindar

A revolução da máquina já entrou na religião – pelo menos no Japão. Um templo budista na cidade de Kyoto decidiu mudar suas práticas para se aproximar das pessoas e instalou ali um robô. Qual é o seu papel? Anuncie sermões aos crentes. Com quase um metro e oitenta de altura, o robô Mindar tem uma voz feminina e foi criado em homenagem à divindade budista da misericórdia Kannon. Os braços, rosto e ombros do corpo do robô são cobertos com silicone (imitando a pele humana). É tudo. Todo o resto consiste em engrenagens de metal expostas.

 

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Mindar

The machine revolution has already entered religion – at least in Japan. A Buddhist temple in the city of Kyoto decided to change its practices in order to become closer to people, and installed a robot there. What is your role? Announce sermons to believers. Almost six feet tall, the robot Mindar has a female voice and was created in honor of the Buddhist deity of mercy Kannon. The arms, face and shoulders of the robot body are covered with silicone (imitating human skin). It’s all. Everything else consists of exposed metal gears.

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.

REVITAL COHEN & TUUR VAN BALEN

The Immortal
A number of life-support machines are connected to each other, circulating liquids and air in attempt to mimic a biological structure.
The Immortal investigates human dependence on electronics, the desire to make machines replicate organisms and our perception of anatomy as reflected by biomedical engineering.
A web of tubes and electric cords are interwoven in closed circuits through a Heart-Lung Machine, Dialysis Machine, an Infant Incubator, a Mechanical Ventilator and an Intraoperative Cell Salvage Machine. The organ replacement machines operate in orchestrated loops, keeping each other alive through circulation of electrical impulses, oxygen and artificial blood.
Salted water acts as blood replacement: throughout the artificial circulatory system minerals are added and filtered out again, the blood gets oxygenated via contact with the oxygen cycle, and an ECG device monitors the system’s heartbeat. As the fluid pumps around the room in a meditative pulse, the sound of mechanical breath and slow humming of motors resonates in the body through a comforting yet disquieting soundscape.Life support machines are extraordinary devices; computers designed to activate our bodies when anatomy fails, hidden away in hospital wards. Although they are designed as the ultimate utilitarian appliances, they are extremely meaningful and carry a complex social, cultural and ethical subtext. While life prolonging technologies are invented as emergency measures to combat or delay death, my interest lies in considering these devices as a human enhancement strategy.This work is a continuation of my investigation of the patient as a cyborg, questioning the relationship between medicine and techno- fantasies about mechanical bodies, hyper abilities and posthumanism.

Arcangelo Sassolino

Damnatio Memoriae

From the Latin, damnatio memoriae describes an act of erasure from the historical record reserved for
those who have brought dishonor to the Roman State. Employed as the most stringent punishment for
treason, damnatio memoriae physically razes all traces of an individual from society, typically through
the destruction a statue’s physiognomy or the abrasion of inscribed monuments. Throughout the past
two decades, Sassolino has developed a body of work that examines the relationship between industrial
machines and humanist impulses where viewers are meant to question how an sculpture’s kinetic
function aesthetically and conceptually allegorizes human experiences and cultural conditions.

YURI ANCARANI

DA VINCI

“Da Vinci”: a name evocative of masterpieces in the history of art, but also a remotely manipulated medical robot allowing surgeons to perform operations. Yuri Ancarani, filmmaker and artist, with this film gives us access to the interior of a human body, in shades of blue evoking the “grotta azzura”, a mythical maritime cave in Capri. Here is observed the dance of the machines, a sign not of a dehumanized environment, but on the contrary of a human intelligence at work.

Ying Yu

airmorphologies

Humans, as social beings, use language to communicate. The human voice, as a biometric authentication mechanism, is constantly used throughout daily life applications, such as speech recognition, speaker verification, and so on. Currently, language-based communications mainly fall into two categories: voice over air, and voice over internet protocol. Can we add a new dimension for voice communication such as a wearable material? If so, how could we shape matter in order to physicalize vocal information?

airMorphologiesis an interactive installation that uses soft materials, such as silicon, fabric, and air, to realize these physicalizations. The human voice controls the actuation of a soft wearable structure, changing the appearance of the human body.

Katja Heitmann

Eggs Are Good For Your Hair
Katja is inspired by the influence of everydays’ digital technologies on society and with that the arising questions about the identity of our human body. She fuses everydays’ technology, the dancers’ body and the presence of the audience into unconventional performances. Who moves who?

guda koster

Wrapped up
With her installations, sculptures and photographs, Dutch artist Guda Koster transforms the human body and attaches a new identity to her characters or to herself, using clothing as the main visual art form, patterns and colours to create surreal stories.

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.

CHANG YEN TZU

Self Luminous 2 – Unbalance
Self-luminous 2 is an experimental handmade instrument shown as performance. It is a series-project which I have been working on since 2013 and finally developed into shape in 2014. I am looking for intimate and personal instrument that reflects on the relation of digital sound and light message. In computer language, light on is 1 and light off is 0. If more than 2 lamps, it could be code or readable possibility by the meanings. When I press the button or turn the knob, the message will be sent to Pure Data, and the sound will be triggered in live by Pure Data.
The Data of sound such as frequency and volume, are analysed and sent out to the second Arduino to control the light. The light, in thus case, is an intuitive element for human beings. From this point, it is really close to sound which disturbs our biological body directly. The lights are visualised and they can be transferred the into messages. The message might be readable by coincidence with the link to the code. The light is bright enough to let audience to have persistence of vision in mind. During the performance, the sound will be reproduced by code and part of it is impromptu.
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ELEVENPLAY x RZM

Discrete Figures
‘Discrete Figures’ unites the performing arts and mathematics in a dramatic exploration of the relationship between the human body and computer generated movement (simulated bodies) born from mathematical analysis. As an additional layer of complexity, the performance piece utilizes drones, A.I., and machine learning in the quest for a new palette of movement to foster undiscovered modes of expressive dance that transcend the limits of conventional human subjectivity and emotional expression.

Tokujin Yoshioka

吉冈德仁
吉岡徳仁
transparent mannequins

Considered ‘grid bodies’, or the ‘transparent body installation’ yoshioka has specially conceived these figures to highlight issey miyake’s garments. in room A, one finds the 1970s collections of miyake dressing figures composed out of 365 laser cut cardboard parts, arranged as a grid structure to create a futuristic human body. they are adorned by pieces that investigate miyake’s constant innovation in fabric-making, and his deep respect for tradition.

Ola Maciejewska

BOMBYX MORI
Bombyx Mori alludes to the silk caterpillar, which has become entirely dependent on human beings for survival. Here, the natural body and the artificial process are inextricably linked: a poignant metaphor for this sculptural interpretation of one of the pioneers of modern dance and performance art.more

Olga Noronha

She has a thing for anatomy, inherited from her parents. But instead of becoming a doctor, Olga Noronha (born in 1990) transformed this interest into a unique language that creates a dialogue between the human body and sculptural pieces of jewelry. Like in series “Orpus in Claustrum”. The collection presents a courageous juxtaposition of crimson priestesses in soft silhouettes and sensational structured items that envelope the model like a modern-day Aelita, queen of space, from the homonymous movie of 1924 directed by Constructivist Yakov Protazanov.

Markus Schinwald

Multidisciplinary in his practice, Markus Schinwald alternately uses painting, video, photography, installation, performance, theater, dance and even the art of the puppeteer. From his training as a fashion designer, the artist has retained a keen interest in the human body, exploring its capabilities and limitations, both physically and psychologically.

Thomas Feuerstein

PROMETHEUS DELIVERED

The marble sculpture PROMETHEUS DELIVERED – a replica of Prometheus Bound by Nicolas Sébastien Adam (1762) – is slowly decomposed by chemolithoautotrophic bacteria. The acidic process water from the bioreactor KAZBEK penetrates the body of the sculpture via tubes and runs off the surface of the stone. The limestone turns into gypsum while the sculpture slowly dissolves. The biomass of the bacteria is the energy source for human liver cells from which the organic sculpture OCTOPLASMA grows. Inorganic stone turns into organic meat. PROMETHEUS DELIVERED is a play on words, referring to birth in the sense of “delivery”, and to the central importance of the liver in myth.

LAURA LYNN JANSEN AND THOMAS VAILLY

Inner Fashion
Inner Fashion questions the codes, rules and production technic of fashion. The human body is seen as a fluid, inflatable and mobile structure in which the tension of fabric remplace muscles. Each piece of cloth are made of 2 layers: an inner layer, XXS, highly strechable and an outer layer, XL and none strechable. Both layer are dressed on a zeppelin shaped balloon representing the human body. As the balloon fills up with air, the fabric of the inner layer stretches out and both fabric are touching each other.

MARIA MARTINS

“O impossivel”

They touch. They bite. They get warm. They penetrate. They are made. They get rid of. They stick their tongues in. They put the body in. They get body. They split up. They exist.
They want to be one. It is impossible (“O impossivel”). Which means that a single body, as you would like, is impossible. It can not. For a moment yes, for a moment they can. But no, they can’t. Impossible. They cannot be one. Despite the bites. Their bodies are different. They were born and will die self-absorbed, in themselves. Between them there is an abyss, a discontinuity. But they want to be continuous, they want their bodies to be one body. Since they cannot, they celebrate the sacrifice of the meat. “Essentially,” says Georges Bataille, “the field of eroticism is the field of violence, the field of rape.” Isn’t it violent, perhaps, to want to break the discontinuity of the other closed in on itself? Isn’t it violent to force the discontinuity of the other to be a continuous whole with him? O impossível by the Brazilian Maria Martins (1894/1973) shows the excesses of sex (take note: excess, sex). Or impossível is the moment in which the organs swell with blood and gush sexuality. The moment when animality makes us gloriously human.

HERMAN KOLGEN

INJECT
A HUMAN BODY IS INJECTED IN A CISTERN. OVER THE COURSE OF 45 MINUTES, THE PRESSURE OF THE LIQUID EXERTS UPON HIM MULTIPLE NEUROSENSORIAL TRANSFORMATIONS. FROM HIS EPIDERMAL FIBER TO HIS NERVOUS SYSTEM, HE REACTS TO INFLUXES OF VISCOSITY IN THIS LIQUID CHAMBER. HIS CORTEX, LACKING OXYGEN, GRADUALLY LOSES ALL NOTIONS OF THE REAL. LIKE A HUMAN GUINEA PIG: A MATTER-BODY WHOSE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES ARE THE OBJECT OF KINETIK TABLEAUX, OF SINGULAR TEMPORAL SPACES.

Sonja Baumel

crocheted membrane

‘Crocheted Membrane’ experiments with creating a momentary fiction through fashion artifacts. Starting with the physical needs of one individual human body in an outdoor temperature of 10 degrees Celsius, seven hand-crocheted body forms were produced. The clothing’s texture got thinner or opened up completely on areas of the body that needed less warmth and were thicker where warmth was lacking. In this way, a fundamental change in the aesthetic and function of clothes was displayed. Fixed forms, such as trousers, were recreated into new, unique body forms. Instead of one uniform surface, the textures became alive and inimitable. “Her concept of clothing does not derive in the same way as most fashion design, from shape or historically patterned form with embedded social hierarchy and material richness, but is instead determined by the needs and sensations of the human body – performing in the same way that bacteria populations individually respond.” (Villeré 2014) The resulting fictional artifacts illustrate how we could use knowledge about our unique bacteria population to create a novel layer.

Evelyn Bencicova

ecce homo

The expressive capacity of the human body is infinite. A naked body, beyond any sexual connotation, is pure art. Conceptual photographs about the idea of the body is what Evelyn Bencicova brings us in her series Ecce Homo (Latin term that means “here is the man” and which is cited in terms of violence or war), in which we see a lot of bodies pile up and form strange sculptural forms. At no time do we see any faces, which helps to depersonify each of the participating actors. The result is somewhat disturbing: we do not know why those bodies are there, or what they are trying to do. It is a mix between choreography, aesthetics and a theatrical performance. Of great artistic sensitivity, there is something in these figures that evokes the feeling of a human collective. Feelings to the surface.

MEREDITH MONK

מרדיית המונק
Мередит Монк
ميريديث مونك
16mm Earrings
Meredith Monk’s groundbreaking performance work, 16 Millimeter Earrings, was a seamless integration of live performance, objects, film, vocal and instrumental music, movement, text, recorded sound, and light. It marked several, notable “firsts” for Monk: thinking of sound as an overall environment, working with her voice and visual images as primary elements, creating a full sound score, and incorporating film into a live work. The piece was a breakthrough in her quest to discover a visual/sonic/poetic performance form that could weave together multiple modes of perception. Responding to the original performances in 1966, art critic John Perrault wrote in the Village Voice, “Images, movement, film, words and sounds in Miss Monk’s new work are so skillfully interwoven and inter-related that no description can substitute for the kind of magic that she has managed to produce. The whole stage is her canvas and she uses every bit of it. 16 Millimeter Earrings has to do with surfaces, all seen as if through glass or reflected in a mirror. The surface of the human body. The surface of the erotic and the emotional. The radical juxtaposition of apparently contradictory surfaces- film, flesh, colors, and sound- becomes a witty method of deliberation and deliverance, and of complete art.”
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ATSUKO TANAKA

Electric Dress
«‹Electric Dress› is a powerful conflation of the tradition of the Japanese komono with modern industrial technology. Prior to her conception of this work, Tanaka had appeared in a larger than-life paper dress that was peeled away layer by layer, not unlike the peeling away of Murakami’s paintings; she was ultimately disrobed to a leotard fitted with blinking lights. Tanaka began to envision ‹Electric Dress› in 1954, when she outlined in a small notebook a remarkably prophetic connection between electrical wiring and the physiological systems that make up the human body. (…) After fabricating the actual sculpture, she costumed herself in it in the tradition of the Japanese marriage ceremony. Hundreds of light bulbs painted in primary colors lit up along the circulatory and nerve pathways of her body.»
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ZIWON WANG

My name is Z
The artist invokes the debate on mechanization, and sense of self. Is it a thing of the far future or is it already an integrated part of our lives? For instance, if a human drives stick transmission automobile, in a broad sense, the human is mechanized suitable to the stick transmission automobile, and if the human drives automatic transmission automobile, the human is mechanized to the automatic transmission automobile.Wang says. We all live each day as a part of machine and mechanization deepens gradually. The body is gradually deprived. Yesterday, my finger took over remote control; today, the remote control takes over my finger. by various modes of assimilating the data of the world.”