parallaxis
In a new moving-image work by Melbourne-based artist and architect Matthew Bird, two bodies move across the land, working with large cylindrical instruments. We witness them map and survey a terrain analogous to universal physical and psychological locations, each revolution marking a paradoxical attempt to pin an earthly position through perpetual movement. Playing on the human need to understand our relationship to the people and places around us, Parallaxis considers the potential for architectural processes and measurements to act as a foundation for structures of understanding.

The Heart Chamber Orchestra
File Festival – Hipersonica 

In the TERMINALBEACH Heart Chamber Orchestra (made up of artists Erich Berger and Peter Vatava), twelve musicians played pieces from the heartbeat, recorded by an electrocardiogram from data sent by sensors placed on their bodies. As the live score created in real time from the physical and emotional states of the musicians, their beats further influenced the resulting musical composition. In this way, the biological feedback loop becomes a self-generating, organic and evolving system, which creates a musical score and a show that adopts the form of open or network art, in which chance and interdependence, thus how emotional changes and computational reasoning create a biological and psychological dynamic at the same time.

Patriots, citizens, lovers was developed in conversation with Ukrainian journalist Maxim Ivanukha as a commission of the PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Art Prize 2014 and is composed of ten urgent interviews with Ukrainian LGBTI and queer activists who discuss the critical and dire situation of lesbian, gay, trans and intersex lives in Ukraine in times of war[…] Social invisibility, physical and psychological abuse, political violence, and a deeply patriarchal culture frame the context for the difficult work of LGBTI activists who denounce discrimination and demand the transformation of the system.

Scale
‘scale’ is an interspecies art project: an audience-interactive installation that involves nocturnal electric fish from the Amazon River Basin. Twelve different species of these fish comprise a choir whose sonified electrical fields provide the source tones for an immersive audiovisual environment. The fish are housed in individual tanks configured in a custom-built sculptural arc of aluminum frames placed around a central podium. The electrical field from each fish is translated into sound, and is thus heard — unprocessed or with digital effects added, with immediate control over volume via a touchscreen panel — through a 12-channel surround sound system, and with LED arrays under each tank for visual feedback. All software is custom-designed. Audience members interact as deejays with the system. Amongst the goals of the project is our desire to foster wider public awareness of these remarkable creatures, their importance to the field of neurological research, and the fragility of their native ecosystem.The project leaders comprise visual/conceptual artist Marlena Novak, composer/sound designer Jay Alan Yim, and neural engineer Malcolm MacIver. MacIver’s research focuses on sensory processing and locomotion in electric fish and translating this research into bio-inspired technologies for sensing and underwater propulsion through advanced fish robots. Novak and Yim, collaborating as ‘localStyle’, make intermedia works that explore perceptual themes, addressing both physical and psychological thresholds in the context of behavior, society/politics, and aesthetics.

poster sky3

Deja’s work is so effective because it engages with the aesthetics of new technologies in order to critique their sociological, psychological, and physical impact on our embodied selves. At times idealistic and others damning, Deja avoids sorting technology into a
good-bad binary, but instead allows both ends of that spectrum to proliferate, allowing visitors to her supersensory exhibitions come to their own conclusion. She just asks “Technology enhances
and simplifies communication, but are we really more connected?”

A wall is just a wall (and nothing more at all)

In ‘A wall is just a wall (and nothing more at all),’ Canadian, Paris-artist, Kapwani Kiwanga explores disciplinary architecture and design by isolating the structural traits and intended psychological effects of different built environments, such as prisons, hospitals, and mental health facilities.

file sao paulo 2018
“Outrospectre” is an experimental proposal for a medical device aimed at reconciling people with death through simulating out-of-body experiences. In healthcare the majority of efforts and research focus on keeping people alive. The fear and experience of death is a mostly neglected topic. Recent (para) psychological research, however, suggests that the sensation of drifting outside of one’s own body using virtual reality technology could help reduce death anxiety. “Outrospectre” explores the possible application of these findings in hospital surroundings where it could help terminal patients accept their own mortality with more comfort.
This project investigates unanswered questions about mortality and ‘end of life’.