highlike

Heinrich Bulthoff

Cable Robot Simulator
Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik

Eight steel cables, each with 1.4 tons of tensions, hold aloft a caged platform with a seat for one person. Using a wireless VR headset, that person can simulate experiences like flight while being zoomed in dozens of different ways. Eight retracting cables connected to a winch pull on the cage. It’s like a giant, flying VR jungle gym.

tabor robak

balenciaga collaboration
A 25 minute video loop with previously unreleased tracks by DJ Hell, made in collaboration with Balenciaga.

Here is a dramatic tension in his work between the real and the imagined in his use of often-appropriated digital objects to create virtual landscapes, which frequently contain elements – animals, machines, fragments of videogames – that are recognisable from our day to day life. This creates a symbiotic relationship between the digital and the real. In a very real way digital space has now become an intangible reality. The worlds built by Robak have a distinctly cinematic sensibility that hyperbolises the shine and dramatic effects of 3D rendered animation. The aesthetic of his work is supremely important, drawing the viewer into a truly alluring, indulgent and strangely gratifying environment. There is a further challenge to the void between high-art and the worlds of 3D animation and gaming, in the intersection between depiction and simulation. This can be partially attributed to the vernacular of advertising Robak is so proficient at utilising.

JF Malouin

Les trois Grâces

file festival
“Les Trois Grâces” is a presence and corporeality simulation in virtual reality. Exposing the underlying power struggle implied within touch, this piece explores the trespassing  of bodily frontiers and territoriality. As a sculpture, its object is not matter, but our relationship to the other.
It offers a troubling experience of intimate proportions.

Random International

Presence and Erasure
Presence and Erasure is a portrait machine that explores the reality of automated facial recognition and how people relate to their self-image, instinctively and emotionally. Within a given spatial domain, the artwork constantly scans for faces in the vicinity and photographs them. When the artwork’s algorithm detects a certain quality within a photograph, this image is temporarily printed at large scale by exposing a photochromic surface to light impulses. Each automated portrait remains for little more than a minute, before gradually dissolving into blankness. RANDOM INTERNATIONAL began to combine transient mark-making with automated portraiture early on in their practice, in 2008. Presence and Erasure marks the latest development in this body of work and assumes a minimal, industrial aesthetic that references their earliest studies on this theme. The physical impact of facial recognition and machine vision is emphasised by the exposure of the printing process itself, contrasted against the aesthetic of the high resolution portraits generated. RANDOM INTERNATIONAL intend this as a counter to the perception of surveillance footage as always being low quality, aiming to create a deeper reflection on the nature of surveillance today as well as the resounding cognitive and emotional dissonances.

Troika

AVA

Ava’ is Troika’s first sculptural manifestation of their exploration of algorithms. ‘Ava’ is the physical result of emergence and self organisation brought about by ‘growing’ a sculpture through the use of a computer algorithm that imitates the emergence of life by which complexity arises from the simplest of things. As such the sculpture probes at the nature of becoming, existence and our strive to understand and replicate the complexities of life.In a landscape where our personal data is a raw material, and where we, humans, have become subordinate spectators of algorithms and a computerised infrastructure, we ask the question how much or little are we capable of influencing our surrounding reality, how much is predetermined, how much is down to chance.

Gustav Deutsch

Shirley
Visions of reality
FILE FESTIVAL
Shirley is a woman in America in the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, and early ‘60s. A woman who would like to influence the course of history with her professional and socio-political involvement. A woman who does not accept the reality of the Depression years, WWII, the McCarthy era, race conflicts and civil rights campaigns as given but rather as generated and adjustable.
Edward Hopper movie

Tromarama

Madakaripura

Digital image projection, software, real-time internet-based data, and sound
Installation shot at St. Saviour Church, London
Tromarama is an art collective founded in 2006 by Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena. Engaging with the notion of hyperreality in the digital age, their projects explore the interrelationship between the virtual and the physical world. Their works often combine video, installations, computer programming and public participation depicting the influence of digital media on the society perception towards their surroundings. They live and work between Jakarta and Bandung.

MIGUEL CHEVALIER

Leistungspixel
Die Power Pixels-Ausstellung besteht aus zwei generativen und interaktiven Virtual-Reality-Installationen: Complex Meshes 2020 und Oscillations 2020, eine Arbeit, die erstmals der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert wird. Oscillations 2020 ermöglicht eine grafische 3D-Visualisierung der Musik von Michel Redolfi. Eine Wellenform wird in Echtzeit entsprechend den Frequenzen und Amplituden der Musik erzeugt. Diese Klangspektren der verschiedenen Musikklänge erzeugen endlose imaginäre Landschaften. Bild und Musik reagieren in einer Verschmelzung emotionaler Natur aufeinander, die zu einer echten Synästhesie beiträgt.

Kimchi and Chips

Difference and Repetition
The title references Deleuzes thesis ‘Difference and Repetition’ – his attempt to understand reality without referring to identities. The artists aim to ‘unidentify’ the audience – to criticize the bubbles of reality which technology has helped us to build around ourselves. By allowing ourselves to remove our identity occasionally, we can better understand the thoughts of those we disagree with and therefore better work together to build a combined reality. Difference (in both senses) is generated by the motion control system which continuously changes the pose of the mirrors relative to the viewer. This movement disrupts space itself, creating a transformation similar to that of a Lorentz transformation when one travels close to the speed of light. This causes space itself to compress, twist and break, giving the viewer a tool for observing the non-absolute nature of time.

Evelyn Bencicova & Enes Güç

Work in progress
The motionless figure of an androgynous giantess occupies almost the entire gallery space in her entangled posture. On its body and around it, small scaffolding grows upwards. But the construction site is deserted. Only the figure, which resembles an avatar, remains in a calm state. A state of “being in between”. Between day and night. Between dream and reality or even between life and death? It almost seems as if the figure is still being brought back to life. One is inclined to think of Mary Shelley, whose novel character Victor Frankenstein created an artificial human being 200 years ago – in a time of great upheaval and discovery. Today we find ourselves once again at a turning point in society and technology, which makes us question ourselves as well as platforms on which we construct our selfs… Is that what Evelyn Bencicova and Enes Güç are alluding to here?

Ujoo+limheeyoung

Fountain with Red
Stainless steel, water pump, red liquid, urethane paint. Ujoo+limheeyoung is the husband and wife team of media artists Ujoo and Limheeyoung. Since first working together in 2004 in preparation for design competition, they have been involved in projects that use a variety of means of visual expression – kinect expression sculpture, drawings, real-time interactive videos – to address the theme of absurdity of reality.

Índice

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

TZUSOO

SCHRÖDINGER’S BABY
Schrödinger’s Baby(2019/20), TZUSOO alludes to the popular thought experiment devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. Schrödinger proposed a scenario in which a cat is locked in a box with an unstable radioactive atom that could potentially begin to emit radiation and release a toxic gas. However, there is no way to say with certainty when or indeed whether this will happen without opening the box. The result is a paradox, with Schrödinger asserting that the cat enters a state of superposition that makes it impossible to say whether it is alive or dead.The South Korean artist translates this famous paradox into the reality of her own life, creating a digital baby in virtual space. Based on her inner grappling with potential motherhood, TZUSOO bought the digital model of a developing embryo, refining it according to her own ideas. She is free to determine the sex, skin colour and other characteristics or to dispense with all specifications so as to avoid stereotyping. In Schrödinger’s Baby, TZUSOO thus discuss core aspects of her work including reflection on gender and origin for which she also draws on her personal experience as a South Korean artist in Europe.

Dirk Koy & Bild und Bewegung

Luftraum
In 2016, Dirk Koy founded the studio for motion design and experimental film «Dirk Koy Bild und Bewegung». In his work, he uses different technologies (drones / 2D and 3D animation / photogrammetry / AR / VR) to create moving digital images. He investigates the interface between reality and virtuality and is also looking for the painterly component in the digital context. The Experiment plays a central role.

frank kolkman and juuke schoorl

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’.

danae io

The lips, the lisp, the slip of the tongue
The video explores voice modelling, voice donation, algorithmic prediction and the incomputable. The work examines in parallel the process of modelling the mouth to the process of modelling the voice, questioning modelling as a scientific/technological technique, by considering it as a means of producing reality, rather than merely an observational tool. What leaks from the model? Can the multiplicity and complexity of the voice be contained in an algorithmic model?
file sp 2019 videoart

Nicolás Alcalá

Melita
FILE FESTIVAL 2019
A 20’ (minutes) animated real-time VR (Virtual Reality) short film about Anaaya, a brilliant scientist working to find a new planet for humanity while the world that we know dies slowly due to extreme climate change; and Melita, an AI designed to help her on her herculean task. This is the first part of a much bigger tale, that will take us into Melita’s journey to find Aurora, the next cradle for humanity.

Quintessenz

Lingering Summer
“Lingering Summer” is a site-specific installation created for the 2019 West Bund Art Fair. The gradation of colors from yellow to lime green, and indigo to cerulean blue, is reminiscent of the dynamics of changing colors from early to mid-summer. The ascending and descending of layers create a natural and comforting rhythm, as if forming a virtual space to preserve the summer scene inside the steel and concrete architecture, mesmerizing the audience by breaking them away from reality.

liam johnson

Central Saint Martins MA Autumn/Winter 2018

“Liam Johnson opened the show in similar style, although his rigidly hemmed dresses, the stretch fabric of which framed the models’ bodies like gazebos, were rooted in something more transferrable to reality”. Anders Christian Madsen

Signe Pierce

A Reality Artist Taking Inspiration From The Everyday

Signe Pierce gained notoriety in 2015 within queer and feminist art circles for her incredibly shocking and poignant performance video, American Reflexxx[…] Currently, Signe is elaborating on the themes she began to explore in that video, such as cyber surveillance, constructs of femininity, and the male gaze.

fabrice hyber

POF 51
Fabrice Hyber sets out to examine the way we communicate and mimic the endless affinities between ideas. What interests Hyber is engaging people with everyday life to invent new modes of behavior. In his mental spa with Faust, he deploys one of his POF’s (Prototypes d ‘Objets en Fonctionnement, created between 1991-2012) to interpret and resolve the complexity of reality by constantly searching for possible, or impossible, hypotheses, a kind of activism to explore endless possibility and infinite variations for art-making.

Jasna Dimitrovska

Three Machines on Transparency
Three Machines on transparency is a project that is imagined as an “exhibition by appointment” where the artist guides the audience throughout the gallery installation. The machines represent artefacts that “do” philosophy or prototypes that materialize ideas. By demonstrating their functionality the artist synthesizes philosophical concepts into the corporeality of the physical prototypes.

video

REYNOLD REYNOLDS

레이 놀드 레이놀즈
РЕЙНОЛЬД РЕЙНОЛЬДС
Secrets Trilogy
Secret Machine

Secret Machine is the second of the Secrets Trilogy; a cycle exploring the imperceptible conditions that frame life and is preceded by Secret Life (2008) and followed by Six Easy Pieces (2010)
In Secret Machine a woman is subjected to Muybridge’s motion studies. She is treated in the same fashion as in the original Muybridge photography: with Greek aesthetic in a Cartesian grid. A short time after Mybridge’s studies, Duchamp painted Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) attempting to show time on a flat surface. He is expanding cubism and painting into another dimension: time. Time is about movement and change, like our experience of reality. Without change life does not exist. Photography does not capture this experience. In Secret Machine different filming techniques are compared to the motion of the body. The film camera becomes another measurement tool in a way a video camera cannot. The intention was to make an art piece from the point of view of a machine, specifically a camera.
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Gustav Deutsch

Shirley: Visions of Reality
FILE SAO PAULO 2015
Edward Hopper movie
Inusual y rompedora película concebida como un experimento por la austriaca mente de Gustav Deutsch (Viena, 1952), el cual trae a la pantalla 13 cuadros del pintor norteamericano Edward Hopper y les insufla vida a través del protagonismo de Shirley, mujer que hace las veces de Josephine, quien fuera la fiel esposa de Hopper y sempiterno modelo de sus obras. Ella es como la encarnación de la mujer norteamericana a lo largo de los años que abarcan los lienzos elegidos, de 1931 hasta 1965.

GIUSEPPE RANDAZZO

Джузеппе Рандаццо
transmutation
Transmutation#01 is a generative system composed of two interacting multicellular agents in a Voronoi spatial configuration. Each cell owns a color/saturation information. The cells interact with each other and with the other agent. The two agents are different. The circular one, the most active and in evolution, constantly tries to reorganize its shape and color structures, connecting similar colors in concentric formations. Moreover the saturation and shape of its colors aggregates are influenced by the duration and proximity of the interaction with the other pluricellular agent, whose motion is abstract and immutable. The metaphor at the heart of this system is a reference to the subject of the 2012 Gender Docufilm Festival in Rome, from which the video was commissioned, that precisely addresses the issues related to the the reengineering and the transmutation of the sexual, physical, mental identity, through the collision / confrontation with the external reality. Coded with Processing, rendered with 3Delight (via Processing). In collaboration with Filippo Ulivieri, music by Massimo Dolce.