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DOUG AITKEN

Underwater Pavilions
Underwater Pavilions is artist Doug Aitken’s large-scale installation produced by Parley for the Oceans and presented in partnership with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). The work consists of three temporary underwater sculptures, floating beneath the ocean’s surface that swimmers, snorkelers, and scuba divers swim through and experience. Geometric in design, the sculptures create underwater spaces synthesizing art and science as they are constructed with carefully researched materials and will be moored to the ocean floor. Part of each structure is mirrored to reflect the underwater seascape and create a kaleidoscopic observatory for the viewer, while other surfaces are rough and rock-like. The environments created by the sculptures will constantly change with the currents and the time of day, focusing the attention of the viewer on the rhythm of the ocean and its life cycles.

Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva

Signals
SIGNALS is a collaborative project by artists Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva that focuses on immersive audio-visual renderings of altered seascapes. Sassoon and Silva share an ongoing theme in their individual practices; the depiction of wilderness and natural forms through computer imaging. Created by merging their respective fields of visual research, SIGNALS features oceanic panoramas inhabited by unnatural substances and enigmatic structures. The project draws from sources such as oceanographic surveys, climate studies and science-fiction to create 3D generated video works and installations that reflect on contamination, mutation and future ecologies.

DEWAIN VALENTINE

CIRCLE BLUE
Influenced by the seascapes and skies of Southern California, Valentine was an early pioneer of using industrial plastics and resin to produce monumental sculptures that reflect and distort the light and space that surround them. For Valentine, a smooth surface was the whole point of the work and he did not want it to look old. While he was teaching a course in plastics technology at UCLA in 1965, he wanted to produce a polyester resin in large volumes that would not crack from curing.

RYAN HABBYSHAW

carnival aquarium

The interactive aquarium is installed in store front windows in 6 cities across the US. Using computer vision the seascape will react to the motion of a user, seaweed will sway and fish will scatter. Users can then dial in with any mobile device and create a fish using their voice. As they connect in realtime the sounds they make are analyzed and create a dynamically generated fish. You can then enter that fish into the aquarium and use your key pad to eat various pieces of fish food that will transform and morph your fish into creatures. The application will remember the state of your fish so that when you call back later you can evolve your fish even further.

Kian-Peng Ong

Coronado
File festival
“Coronado” was inspired by a visit to the Coronado beach in California, which was an awe inspiring moment never experienced in other beaches. The soundscape present in Coronado seemed to be coming from all directions with layers and layers of sound waves. I decided then that I would make a sound work to translate this experience. The sound installation is characterized by the interplay of the analog and digital sound sources which layers over one another, exploring the idea of a seascape. The center of the installation is an ocean drum controlled with mechanical arms that creates and simulates the sound of sea waves. This is picked up by the microphone, reprocessed through the computer and sent out to the 6 channel surround speakers in different time. The interplay and sense of endlessness in the layering the analog and digital are my interpretation and response to the wonderment I found in Coronado.