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STELARC

Stickman inclinable
Le StickMan inclinable est un robot de 9 m de long, actionné par des muscles pneumatiques en caoutchouc. Les visiteurs de l’AGSA peuvent animer intuitivement le robot à partir d’un panneau de commande. Aux périodes indiquées, les personnes en ligne ailleurs peuvent chorégraphier ses mouvements et ses sons. Un algorithme d’arrière-plan anime le robot par intermittence si personne n’intervient, localement ou à distance.

Antoni Rayzhekov and Katharina Köller

Somaphony

<somaphony> is composed of autogenous electronic objects that respond to stimuli and biofeedback wearable controllers. As it is connected with heart pulse, muscle tense, and movement of performers, real-time audiovisual visual composition is possible. The artist explores interdependence between digital equipment and performers that express behavior and cybernetic(artificial brain) relationship through this project.

Ka Fai Choy

Synchrometrics

Can we design future memories for the body?
Is the body itself the apparatus for remembering cultural processes?Prospectus For a Future Body proposes new perspectives on how the body remembers and invents technological narratives. Central to the project is the study of body movement in dance: How it can evolve, adapt or re-condition to possible futures?Eternal Summer Storm explores the concept of muscle memory transfer as an alternative form of interactive cultural continuities. This concept prototype speculates on a future digital library of body movements or dance techniques that can be experienced beyond the audio-visual conventions. Eternal Summer Storm attempts to recreate legendary Japanese dancer Tatsumi Hijikata’s Butoh dance choreography and experience in ‘A Summer Storm’ (1973) from archival footages.Bionic Movement Research is a collection of experiments on the process of designing digital muscle memory for the body. Inspired by Luigi Galvani discovery (1780) of animal electricity in the human body, these experiments appropriate the techniques of electrical nerve stimulation to choreograph artificial muscle contraction and body movement.

STELARC

Reclining Stickman
Reclining StickMan is a 9m long robot, actuated by pneumatic rubber muscles. Visitors at the AGSA can intuitively animate the robot from a control panel. At indicated periods, people online elsewhere can choreograph its movements and sounds. A background algorithm animates the robot intermittently if no-one intervenes, locally or remotely.

Pedro Lopes, Robert Kovacs, Alexandra Ion, David Lindlbauer and Patrick Baudisch

Ad Infinitum
Ad infinitum is a parasitical entity which lives off human energy. It lives untethered and off the grid. This parasite reverses the dominant role that mankind has with respect to technologies: the parasite shifts humans from “users” to “used”. Ad infinitum co-exists in our world by parasitically attaching electrodes onto the human visitors and harvesting their kinetic energy by electrically persuading them to move their muscles. The only way a visitor can be freed is by seducing another visitor to sit on the opposite chair and take their place. Being trapped in the parasite’s cuffs means getting our muscles electrically stimulated in order to perform a cranking motion as to feed it our kinetic energy. This reminds us that, in the cusp of artificially thinking machines, we are no longer just “users”; the shock we feel in our muscles, the involuntary gesture, acknowledges our intricate relationship to uncanny technological realm around us.

Jesper Just

CORPORÉALITÉS
Corporealités is a large-scale work exploring the autonomy of ballet through the immersive elements of sculpture and video. At the heart of a piece is Just’s film, displayed across a series of LED-panels strewn about the space, where close up shots of dancers from the American Ballet Theatre show their bodies affixed to electrotherapy patches. As the muscles displayed on the panels contract, notes of Fauré’s Op. 50 seem to play in tandem, providing an ominously invisible link between the film and physical space.

La La La Human Steps

New Work
Mi Deng and Jason Shipley-Holmes perform

In “New Work” (dance), the viewer was best served by looking at the bodies’ wavering outlines, the women in strapless black leotards and tights, the men in black suits (though sometimes shirtless; costumes by Liz Vandal). Observe the strobe-like effect created by the ferociously waving arms and flexed hands, or the reflections that bounced off the ballerinas’ skin and pink toe shoes. Notice the exaggerated contours of sinewy muscles.

ARIANA PAGE RUSSELL

Ариана Пейдж Расселл
阿丽亚娜页罗素
ראסל עמוד אריאנה
アリアナページラッセル
아리아나 페이지 러셀
A body is an index of passing time. Skin protects us as it shows shifting bones, bruising, muscles loosening and tightening, and freckles and wrinkles forming. I think of this as a transient fashion of skin, including the revealing way a blush decorates one’s cheek, freckles form constellations on an arm, or hair creates sheen on skin’s matte surface

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.

Ralph Baer

Magnavox Odyssey
Even if you’re a devoted fan of video games, there’s a decent chance you’re not familiar with the name Ralph H. Baer. This should be considered gamer high treason considering Baer’s importance in creating the concept of home video games and the vast, varied entertainment ecosystem now built upon them. Despite being the one to push the dominoes toward an industry that currently makes billions of dollars annually, the bulk of the gaming community has largely forgotten about him.Now a 91-year-old widower, the German-born Baer is the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first video game console. The Odyssey is predated in the games-on-screens space only by experiments like Willy Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two and the coin-op dud Computer Space. But Baer also has a long and distinguished record as an engineer and inventor. The list of patents and gadgets in his name encompasses surgical-cutting equipment, “muscle-toning pulse generators,” submarine-tracking radar systems, video simulations for trainee pilots, talking books and talking doormats, iconic ‘80s toys like SIMON and Laser Command, and even launch displays and a lunar-resistant camera grip for the Saturn V and Apollo 11 space programs.

ALEXANDRE BURTON

Impacts
Tesla coils each fitted with a glass pane and suspended from the ceiling of the exhibition space make up the components of this “live” sculptural installation. The presence of the visitor before each sculptural device activates an audio and visual experience. The visitor’s proximity to the works engages arcs of electricity of variable intensities as well as a rhythmic articulation, generated by the impact of the electrical arc on the glass pane.As a symbolic and sonic source, the Tesla coil’s ability to throw electric arcs has been employed by a wide spectrum of artists. With this new work, Alexandre Burton proposes the use of plasma (loosely defined as an electrically neutral medium of positive and negative particles) as matter and medium itself, circumscribed by a defined frame and articulated through unique programming. In this way, IMPACTS serves as a reminder of the danger and muscle of this marvel while capturing its sublime beauty and rhythmic potential.

JONATHAN SCHIPPER

THE SLOW INEVITABLE DEATH OF AMERICAN MUSCLE
This sculpture, by Jonathan Schipper, is a machine that advances two full sized automobiles slowly into one another, simulating a head on automobile collision. The gear system can be adjusted so that the crash occurs over the period of a few days, up to one year or more. The movement can be made so slow as to be invisible.