highlike

Charles Atlas Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener

Tesseract
Tesseract is a collaboration between Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener. It is an evening-length presentation in 2 parts separated by an intermission: a 3D dance film featuring 7 dancers and a live proscenium performance with 6 dancers. The film offers speculative worlds and alternate possibilities in bold visual environments. The performance includes live-video capture with multiple cameras, mixed by Atlas and projected into the stage space. Images obscure and reveal moving bodies behind a translucent scrim, magnified and refracted by Atlas. Through collective action we forge a link between human ritual conjuring and new technological magic. Between the past and the future.

QUBIT AI – International Electronic Language Festival – Art and Technology

QUBIT AI | quantum & synthetic ai
Electronic Language International Festival

July 3rd to August 25th
Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 8pm
FIESP Cultural Center

Design: André Lenz
Image: Iskarioto Dystopian AI Films – Athena

QUBIT AI

In its 25 years of existence, the International Electronic Language Festival (FILE) is an internationally renowned Brazilian project that since 2000 has explored the intersection between art and technology. With more than two decades of history, the festival stands out for fostering exhibition spaces and debate about artistic innovations driven by disruptive and innovative technologies, inviting the public to get involved with experimental forms of art that challenge the boundaries of conventionality. Currently, two of these technologies stand out in the contemporary scenario: the accelerated development of quantum computing and artificial intelligence corroborated by synthetic data.

Quantum computing, an emerging revolution in the technological field, offers a new range of creative possibilities for contemporary artists. This new era allows the exploration of unprecedented frontiers through a new computational format that consists mainly of quantum superposition and entanglement, a new field of exploration for synthetic computer science, as well as for the arts in general; on the other hand, artificial intelligence, fueled by synthetic data, offers artists a new way of making and understanding art, opening up space for new forms, concepts and artistic expressions.

Entitled QUBIT AI, the exhibition delves into this unexplored territory presenting a selection of works of art resulting from the connection between artistic creation and technology, proposing a theoretical reflection on what the interrelationship between quantum computers and synthetic artificial intelligence will be.

Visitors will be invited to experience immersive installations, experimental videos, digital sculptures and other forms of interactive art, which intertwine reality and imagination. The exhibition encourages reflections on the influence of technology on art and contemporary society, while at the same time providing an environment to compare already established technological arts (analog and digital) with the possible futures of art in the synthetic era, enhanced by quantum computing. The QUBIT AI exhibition at FILE SP 2024 transcends the mere presentation of works of art; it is a journey to the limits of human creativity, driven by the convergence of art, science and technology.

Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto
co-organizers and curators of FILE
International Electronic Language Festival

 

QUBIT AI: AESTHETIC SYNTHETIC FILE – São Paulo 2024 – Art and Technology

FILE 2024

QUBIT AI | quantum & synthetic ai
Electronic Language International Festival
July 3rd to August 25th
Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 8pm
FIESP Cultural Center

Design: André Lenz
Image: Iskarioto Dystopian AI Films – Athena

QUBIT AI

In its 25 years of existence, the International Electronic Language Festival (FILE) is an internationally renowned Brazilian project that since 2000 has explored the intersection between art and technology. With more than two decades of history, the festival stands out for fostering exhibition spaces and debate about artistic innovations driven by disruptive and innovative technologies, inviting the public to get involved with experimental forms of art that challenge the boundaries of conventionality. Currently, two of these technologies stand out in the contemporary scenario: the accelerated development of quantum computing and artificial intelligence corroborated by synthetic data.

Quantum computing, an emerging revolution in the technological field, offers a new range of creative possibilities for contemporary artists. This new era allows the exploration of unprecedented frontiers through a new computational format that consists mainly of quantum superposition and entanglement, a new field of exploration for synthetic computer science, as well as for the arts in general; on the other hand, artificial intelligence, fueled by synthetic data, offers artists a new way of making and understanding art, opening up space for new forms, concepts and artistic expressions.

Entitled QUBIT AI, the exhibition delves into this unexplored territory presenting a selection of works of art resulting from the connection between artistic creation and technology, proposing a theoretical reflection on what the interrelationship between quantum computers and synthetic artificial intelligence will be.

Visitors will be invited to experience immersive installations, experimental videos, digital sculptures and other forms of interactive art, which intertwine reality and imagination. The exhibition encourages reflections on the influence of technology on art and contemporary society, while at the same time providing an environment to compare already established technological arts (analog and digital) with the possible futures of art in the synthetic era, enhanced by quantum computing. The QUBIT AI exhibition at FILE SP 2024 transcends the mere presentation of works of art; it is a journey to the limits of human creativity, driven by the convergence of art, science and technology.

Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto
co-organizers and curators of FILE
International Electronic Language Festival

QUBIT AI: FILE QUANTUM WORKSHOP 2024 – São Paulo – Art and Technology

FILE 2024

QUBIT AI | quantum & synthetic ai
Electronic Language International Festival
July 3rd to August 25th
Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 8pm
FIESP Cultural Center

Design: André Lenz
Image: Iskarioto Dystopian AI Films – Athena

QUBIT AI

In its 25 years of existence, the International Electronic Language Festival (FILE) is an internationally renowned Brazilian project that since 2000 has explored the intersection between art and technology. With more than two decades of history, the festival stands out for fostering exhibition spaces and debate about artistic innovations driven by disruptive and innovative technologies, inviting the public to get involved with experimental forms of art that challenge the boundaries of conventionality. Currently, two of these technologies stand out in the contemporary scenario: the accelerated development of quantum computing and artificial intelligence corroborated by synthetic data.

Quantum computing, an emerging revolution in the technological field, offers a new range of creative possibilities for contemporary artists. This new era allows the exploration of unprecedented frontiers through a new computational format that consists mainly of quantum superposition and entanglement, a new field of exploration for synthetic computer science, as well as for the arts in general; on the other hand, artificial intelligence, fueled by synthetic data, offers artists a new way of making and understanding art, opening up space for new forms, concepts and artistic expressions.

Entitled QUBIT AI, the exhibition delves into this unexplored territory presenting a selection of works of art resulting from the connection between artistic creation and technology, proposing a theoretical reflection on what the interrelationship between quantum computers and synthetic artificial intelligence will be.

Visitors will be invited to experience immersive installations, experimental videos, digital sculptures and other forms of interactive art, which intertwine reality and imagination. The exhibition encourages reflections on the influence of technology on art and contemporary society, while at the same time providing an environment to compare already established technological arts (analog and digital) with the possible futures of art in the synthetic era, enhanced by quantum computing. The QUBIT AI exhibition at FILE SP 2024 transcends the mere presentation of works of art; it is a journey to the limits of human creativity, driven by the convergence of art, science and technology.

Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto
co-organizers and curators of FILE
International Electronic Language Festival

QUBIT AI: FILE OPENING LECTURE 2024 – São Paulo – Art and Technology

FILE 2024

QUBIT AI | quantum & synthetic ai
Electronic Language International Festival
July 3rd to August 25th
Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 8pm
FIESP Cultural Center

Design: André Lenz
Image: Iskarioto Dystopian AI Films – Athena

QUBIT AI

In its 25 years of existence, the International Electronic Language Festival (FILE) is an internationally renowned Brazilian project that since 2000 has explored the intersection between art and technology. With more than two decades of history, the festival stands out for fostering exhibition spaces and debate about artistic innovations driven by disruptive and innovative technologies, inviting the public to get involved with experimental forms of art that challenge the boundaries of conventionality. Currently, two of these technologies stand out in the contemporary scenario: the accelerated development of quantum computing and artificial intelligence corroborated by synthetic data.

Quantum computing, an emerging revolution in the technological field, offers a new range of creative possibilities for contemporary artists. This new era allows the exploration of unprecedented frontiers through a new computational format that consists mainly of quantum superposition and entanglement, a new field of exploration for synthetic computer science, as well as for the arts in general; on the other hand, artificial intelligence, fueled by synthetic data, offers artists a new way of making and understanding art, opening up space for new forms, concepts and artistic expressions.

Entitled QUBIT AI, the exhibition delves into this unexplored territory presenting a selection of works of art resulting from the connection between artistic creation and technology, proposing a theoretical reflection on what the interrelationship between quantum computers and synthetic artificial intelligence will be.

Visitors will be invited to experience immersive installations, experimental videos, digital sculptures and other forms of interactive art, which intertwine reality and imagination. The exhibition encourages reflections on the influence of technology on art and contemporary society, while at the same time providing an environment to compare already established technological arts (analog and digital) with the possible futures of art in the synthetic era, enhanced by quantum computing. The QUBIT AI exhibition at FILE SP 2024 transcends the mere presentation of works of art; it is a journey to the limits of human creativity, driven by the convergence of art, science and technology.

Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto
co-organizers and curators of FILE
International Electronic Language Festival

 

NOVA BIENAL RIO of art and technology

The NOVA BIENAL RIO is an autonomous and independent event that transcends the scope of a conventional international exhibition; it is a call to innovation and imagination. Under the theme “New Aesthetic and Supercreativity,” we invite you on a journey through the world of art driven by technology. Hosted by the city of Rio de Janeiro, it takes place at both the iconic Museu do Amanhã and Praça Mauá, reshaping the interaction of the public with art. As you enter the NOVA BIENAL, you will be invited to explore unique aesthetic expressions, looking towards the future through digital and technological lenses. Access NOVA.

Refik Anadol

Quantum Memories: Nature Studies
Technological and digital advancements of the past century could as well be defined by the humanity’s eagerness to make machines go to places that humans could not go, including the spaces inside our minds and the non-spaces of our un- or sub-conscious acts. These unique pieces of the “Quantum Memories” series exhibit arresting visuals and colors that speculate the probability of reaching invisible spaces. They are composed in collaboration with a generative algorithm enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, a new form of computing that exploits the unusual physics of the subatomic world. It turns the visual data that flows around us into an artwork that represents our collective and digitized memories of nature and encourages the viewer to imagine the potential of this computing technology for the future of art, design, and architecture.

Liam Young

Planet City

Planet City, by Los Angeles-based film director and architect Liam Young, explores the productive potential of extreme densification, where 10 billion people surrender the rest of the planet to a global wilderness. Although wildly provocative, Planet City eschews the techno-utopian fantasy of designing a new world order. This is not a neo-colonial masterplan to be imposed from a singular seat of power. It is a work of critical architecture – a speculative fiction grounded in statistical analysis, research and traditional knowledge.
It is a collaborative work of multiple voices and cultures supported by an international team of acclaimed environmental scientists, theorists and advisors. In Planet City we see that climate change is no longer a technological problem, but rather an ideological one, rooted in culture and politics.

Masaki Fujihata

Orchisoid

“Mobility, technological invention, and artistic invention “It’s not just about putting new media into art, or even making new media art. It is about making new media as an artist, about being an artist in new media. Therefore, if it is not only a question of renewing art by injecting it with new means, new tools, new subjects, it may be a matter of shifting its borders to the point of considering experiments, technological inventions, such as art-related events, as part of the artistic project ”. In my opinion, here is how to re-found art and breathe new life into it for years to come! Fujihata’s work leads us to think of Art as “technical conduct”. In this conduct, technique is not instrumentalised, it is therefore freed from having to serve FOR something, it does not have to be effaced in front of what it serves. But this notion is very “fragile” as Pierre-Damien Huyghe points out to us. Indeed, if the technique “is no longer used for” it is no longer “necessary”. We must therefore consider that what is not necessary is precisely what is useful. Highlighting the usefulness in a technique without going through a notion of service is precisely what is at stake in Masaki Fujiata’s artistic position. In his work, it is about exploring the possibilities of a group of techniques so that they do not end up in the use where they are usually agreed. At the heart of Fujihata’s work we are dealing with techniques rich in possibilities. The artist has an artistic conduct which does not seek the means to do something with these techniques but which seeks to discover them. The artist positions himself as a discoverer making both learned and humorous attempts … “Jorane Rest

Refik Anadol

Quantum memories
Quantum Memories is Refik Anadol Studio’s epic scale investigation of the intersection between Google AI Quantum Supremacy experiments, machine learning, and aesthetics of probability. Technological and digital advancements of the past century could as well be defined by the humanity’s eagerness to make machines go to places that humans could not go, including the spaces inside our minds and the non-spaces of our un- or sub-conscious acts. Quantum Memories utilizes the most cutting-edge, Google AI’s publicly available quantum computation research data and algorithms to explore the possibility of a parallel world by processing approximately 200 million nature and landscape images through artificial intelligence. These algorithms allow us to speculate alternative modalities inside the most sophisticated computer available, and create new quantum noise-generated datasets as building blocks of these modalities. The 3D visual piece is accompanied by an audio experience that is also based on quantum noise–generated data, offering an immersive experience that further challenges the notion of mutual exclusivity. The project is both inspired by and a speculation of the Many-Worlds Interpretation in quantum physics – a theory that holds that there are many parallel worlds that exist at the same space and time as our own.

Quayola

Landscape Paintings
Jardins d’Été by Quayola pays homage to the tradition of french impressionism and the late works of Claude Monet.The second iteration of this series of artworks investigates the ways in which nature is observed, studied and synthesized, becoming a point of departure towards abstration. Quayola recreated similar conditions to the classical impressionist landscape paintings, however he engaged with an extensive technological apparatus to capture the sensitive nuances of reality beyond our senses. Here natural landscapes are observed and analysed through the eye of the machine, and re-purposed through new modes of visual synthesis.

Jonathan Monaghan

Den of Wolves
Den of Wolves is a video installation drawing on a range of references to weave a new multi-layered mythology. The work follows three bizarre wolves through a series of increasingly surreal retail stores as they search for the regalia of a monarch. Composed of one continuous camera shot, the work is an immersive, dreamlike journey drawing connections between popular culture, institutional authority and technological over-dependence.

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.

Euglena

Watage
An interactive installation using naturally-generated power rather than man-made sources like electricity. Dandelion fluff (watage in Japanese) soaked in water to form drop-like shapes, untreated fluff, and so on serve as modules, bonded with liquid paste to be reconstructed. The fluff sways in response to viewers’ breath or movement, even in the absence of breeze, immaculately revalidating the viewer’s own existence by making their influence on surroundings visible without use of technology. Using its surrounding environment to send off its seeds, the dandelion has achieved a lightness and form in its fluff specialized to the purpose and sprouts up each year no matter how the world may change. Having been drawn into the quietly-paced world of plants, the artist looked to dandelion fluff for a new form of expression able to hold its own against showy, rapidly evolving technological expression.

Clouds Architecture Office

AVATAR X Lab
The project is a partnership between ANA Holdings Inc. and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); a part of AVATAR X, a collaborative program for the advancement of space exploration and development. ANA and JAXA are both experts at launching vehicles into the atmosphere, the feeling of suspension or ‘being in the air’ is natural for both entities. The AVATAR X Lab Building is designed as a suspended building floating above a moon-like crater. The multi-story structure floats eighteen meters above the crater bottom, and is accessible by a bridge. When astronauts board a spacecraft they cross a bridge; when we board a plane we walk across a jet bridge between the terminal and airplane. This is our last contact with familiar ground before taking off for someplace new. The suspended building embodies this crossing of thresholds: after passing over the bridge you are transported to a new place, the AVATAR X Lab Building, where technological innovation will change how we see the world.

Verena Friedrich

THE LONG NOW
A soap bubble usually remains stable for only a few moments – it is a perfectly formed sphere with an iridescent surface that reflects its surroundings. As one of the classical vanitas symbols the soap bubble traditionally stands for the transience of the moment and the fragility of life. THE LONG NOW approaches the soap bubble from a contemporary perspective – with reference to its chemical and physical properties as well as recent scientific and technological developments. THE LONG NOW is aimed at extending the lifespan of a soap bubble, or even to preserve it forever. Using an improved formula, a machine generates a bubble, sends it to a chamber with a controlled atmosphere and keeps it there in suspension for as long as possible. The project is presented in the form of an experimental set-up in which the newly created soap bubble oscillates permanently between fragility and stability.

JACQUES LESEC & CHRIS MARTIN

INDUSTRIAL CREEPER

On the site we envision a antagonistic dialogue between the seemingly biologic units and its abiotic architectural foundation. The units find a home intertwined amongst the predictable regularity of the steel configuration remeniscent of a deteriorating and outdated technological era whose remnants can be found scattered across downtown Los Angeles. These old industrial artifacts, derived from sheer function, act as an all too familiar platform by which the occupant interacts with this new synthetic ecological system. Throughout the site, we see the units stretched and twisted in an extraodinary demonstration of elasticity. In this way, the building lingers in a constant state of mediation between the past and the future; succombing to the complex configuration of the aggressive industrial creeper.

BINA BAITEL

Pull over
French-israeli-swedish architect-designer bina baitel‘s lighting transcends the interaction between light and material, combining technological innovation with french handcraft. Her newest collection of lighting objects is commissioned and produced by nextlevel galerie in paris.‘Pull-over’: baitel’s previously designed ‘pull-over’ tactile luminaire is now also being produced by nextlevel gallery. The skin of the design is a variable luminous source thanks to its flexible nature – the light bulb, dimmer and lampshade are one.

Adam Ferriss

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.

Nanine Linning

Silver
Robotics, cybernetics and developments in the field of artificial intelligence put the equally fascinating as disquieting idea of artificial life within our grasp. Nanine Linning’s new production SILVER addresses the intimate – and increasingly intrusive – relationship between the human and the technological, showing the beauty of its aesthetics, but also questioning its promise of ever increasing progress and self-improvement.

bart hess

바트 헤스
巴特·赫斯
בארט הס
БАРТА ХЕССА
SIlVERNanine Linning
Nothing has changed as radically in the last few decades as the technology we surround ourselves with on a daily basis. Modern means of communication let the world shrink to a pocket size Global Village. Medical technology promises life beyond its natural limits. Robotics, cybernetics and developments in the field of artificial intelligence put the equally fascinating as disquieting idea of artificial life within our grasp. Nanine Linning’s new production SILVER addresses the intimate – and increasingly intrusive – relationship between the human and the technological, showing the beauty of its aesthetics, but also questioning its promise of ever increasing progress and self-improvement.

Pauline Van Dongen

Pauline van Dongen researches the body in a technologically textured space. After graduating from ArtEZ, Academy of the Arts in Arnhem, the Netherlands, she started her own womenswear label in 2010. Pauline operates a meticulous research of the behaviour of experimental and high-tech materials, combining new technologies with traditional techniques to constantly renovate craftsmanship. Working closely with companies from the field of science and innovation, Pauline aims to merge fashion and technology giving life to scientific creations.

Espadaysantacruz studio

Interactive Chalk Cars
“Interactive chalk cars” is an installation based on a traditional children ́s game, that was originally played on the streets. It uses new digital technologies to review a non-technological game. By using computer vision algorithms and projection mapping, it brings together the real and the virtual. In doing this, we try to combine two playing modes that are usually confronted: the individual video game and the outdoor social game.
FILE FESTIVAL

James Seawright

Dome
James Seawright, born in 1936 in Jackson, Mississippi, was for many years Director of Visual Arts at Princeton University.
Recognized as one of the foremost technological artists since the late 1960’s, his works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim Museum of New York, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, the New Jersey State Museum at Trenton, and other museums throughout the world.

Lee Bul

Live forever: Act I
For her first major exhibition in the United States, Lee Bul exhibited work from her continuing series of karaoke booths that she started at the Venice Biennial in 1999.This new work elaborated upon her interests in investigating the relationship between the body and how we experience our technologically mediated society.more

PAULINE VAN DONGEN

wearable solar

There is nothing natural in nature; technology makes our humanness giving form to our surroundings. The human habitat reveals a techno-morphed structure that can no longer be hidden behind the vestiges of a natural world: technology has to be naturalized. Pauline van Dongen researches the body in a technologically textured space. After graduating from ArtEZ, Academy of the Arts in Arnhem, the Netherlands, she started her own womenswear label in 2010. Pauline operates a meticulous research of the behaviour of experimental and high-tech materials, combining new technologies with traditional techniques to constantly renovate craftsmanship. Working closely with companies from the field of science and innovation, Pauline aims to merge fashion and technology giving life to scientific creations.

Peter Flemming

Canoe
The work here in Dawson is like an old vehicle in which I’ve put a new engine. Entitled Canoe, it consists of an approximately 20 foot long trough of water, that resembles some kind of boat. This provides a means for a gunwales tracking mechanism to slowly, endlessly paddle its way back and forth. It was first constructed in 2001 in a studio beside Halifax harbour. It draws visual inspiration from the bridges and water vessels of this port. Conceptually, it grew from an interest in technological obsolescence: how things (like canoes) make shifts from utility to leisure.
It has experienced several major rebuilds since 2001. Most of them have been practical, but for Dawson I’ve opted for an experimental configuration that changes significantly the nature of the work. Previously, Canoe has only ever been shown indoors. Normally in runs on rechargeable batteries, with a continuous, smooth motion. In Dawson, it is shown outdoors, alongside the Yukon river, showing up in an absurd way the paleness of its artificial river. Here, the primary source of power is sunlight.
Making use of the long northern day, solar panels receive light, storing energy in an array of super-capacitor cells. At this time, Canoe remains still. A custom circuit monitors the amount of charge, and when a predetermined trigger point is reached, it is dumped into Canoe’s electric motor in a burst, allowing it to make a few strokes. Then Canoe rests, while the charging cycle begins again. Motion is intermittent, entirely dependent on the amount and intensity of sunlight. It ranges from near standstill in overcast conditions to perhaps 1 or 2 strokes every minute in full light. The technical term for this type of circuit is a relaxation oscillator. I like this term because, if you remove it from its technical context, it points back to ideas about leisure and utility.

Kevin Beasley

Strange Fruit
Using both sculpture and musical performance in his practice, Kevin Beasley explores the physical materiality and cultural connotations of both objects and sound. His sculptures typically incorporate everyday items like clothing, housewares, or sporting goods, bound together using tar, foam, resin, or other materials. Often they also contain embedded audio equipment that warps and amplifies the ambient tones of their surroundings. For Storylines, Beasley has created two new works specifically for the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building. Within this vast and open sonic environment, Strange Fruit (Pair 1) and Strange Fruit (Pair 2) (both 2015) offer an experience of intimacy, absorbing and reflecting the sound of the crowd at the scale of a personal conversation. Each work embodies this spirit of dialogue in its two-part structure—at its core are two athletic shoes, one merged with microphones, the other with speakers. Suspending these objects in space, Beasley compounds their technological interchange with additional layers of meaning, bringing to mind the urban phenomenon of shoes hanging from overhead wires or poles (itself an open-ended form of communication). At the same time the works’ titles refer to history of lynchings in the American South memorialized by Bronx schoolteacher Abel Meerepol in the 1937 protest song “Strange Fruit.” In these contexts, the hanging forms of Beasley’s sculptures resonate not only with his body, which molded them by hand, or with the bodies moving through the museum, but also with those inscribed in the problematic history of race and class in the United States.

Nirma Madhoo

Future Body

A stiff cyborg, fixed with a glazed and expressionless stare, dips her fingers into an alien-like amniotic fluid. Gravity shifts as droplets reverse upwards, forming a pulsing headpiece that encases her smooth, almost porcelain skull. ‘Future Body’, a new film by Nirma Madhoo, uses CGI and animated 3D modelling to explore technological embodiment, enacting it in a character that transgresses expected gender roles in a newly mechanised system of digital-infused aesthetics.
Set in the clinical, segmented interiors of a simulated hyper-real space, Madhoo’s cyborg is found dressed for battle, in pieces forming exoskeletons, a spinal scorpion’s tail and mantis-like shoes, designed by Iris van Herpen. A collision between her human and technological self is physicalised as she undergoes mitosis, splitting into two and performing a combative dance with her duplicate.
Currently showing in Melbourne in an exhibition titled ‘Fashion Performance: Materiality, Meaning, Media’, alongside work from Hussein Chalayan, BOUDICCA and POSTmatter collaborator Bart Hess, it offers a glimpse into the collapse of gender, species and machine into one another, in turn reimagining the future for fashion design and communication.

AOIFE WULLUR

Aoife Wullur designs work that discusses technical transparency, authenticity, and human experience. Essentially, it is conceptual design with a technological touch. Wullur’s work takes a close look at our rapidly growing tendency to surround ourselves with all kinds of devices that we do not understand technically even though we use them on a daily basis. In response, she has created what she calls ‘Slow Electronics’, an approach that reflects on our behavior and shows the sensibility and beauty of technical transparency in design. For her SHADES OF LIGHT and LIGHT DIVIDER project, she has developed a new way of interweaving electronics and fabric.

KLAUS OBERMAIER, CHRIS HARING

Vivisector

o what extent does the quality of movement of the virtual world influence real sequences of human movement? Will the real world of the 21st century assume via nanotechnology attributes of the virtual world? Are there still significant differences between a body that is made of synthetic material and warmed artificially and the deep glow of trillions of living cells? VIVISECTOR is an examination of the different speeds of people/nature and technology/information society and of their acceleration; an experiment to overcome the space-time continuum in the real world. It breaks the linearity of movement and in doing so shows the absurdity of momentum. Based on the video-technological concept of the moving body-projection that made D.A.V.E. an international hit, VIVISECTOR now goes one step further: the exclusive concentration on video light and video projection produces a new stage aesthetic in which light, body, video and acoustic space form an unprecedented unity.

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN

フセイン·チャラヤン
Чалаян
후세인 샬 라얀
Animatronic Fashion mashup
Furthering his technological trend, Chalayan unveiled the collection entitlledReadings, on screen, eshewing the conventional runway. The dresses themselves are highly structured, creating bold silhouettes from which the laser beams radiate. They are embellished with Swarovski crystals that either deflect the lasers, or take in their light, depending on the angle of the laser. The effect is hauntingly beautiful; where lasers shine directly into Swarovski crystals, they resemble glowing embers, yet where they are deflected the laser beams project into the surrounding space, evoking phantasmagorical new-age sun gods.