gravicells

source: locativearticulenet

Seiko Mikami est artiste, elle travaille et enseigne à Tokyo. Son travail traite de la société de l’information et du corps. Depuis 1995 elle produit des installations interactives qui intègrent la notion de perception.

Sota Ichiwaka est architecte, fondateur de Double Negative Architecture. Il travaille depuis 1995 sur l’espace et ses formalisations, ainsi que sur une expérience de l’architecture basée sur les relations entre le corps et le point de vue.

II émerge de Gravicells un sens étroitement lié au corps, à sa dimension physique mise en évidence par les règles de gravité. La gravité est un phénomène perçu par l’oreille interne, considérée comme une interface : « the interface itself exists inside us ».

Si la gravité est ce qui détermine l’orientation du corps dans l’espace, elle est aussi ce qui détermine toute organisation spatiale. Le projet rend perceptible le processus dynamique des interactions entre la gravité et la force de résistance sans laquelle elle ne peut être matérialisée. Il rend sensible la démesure de l’écart entre les espaces quotidiens et la masse terrestre et propose une nouvelle perception du corps dans sa mise en relation sensible à la résistance et à la gravité, qui rejoue le dialogue entre corps et espace.

Se présente sous la forme d’une installation composée d’un sol noir de 6mx6m équipé de capteurs dont la surface est parcourue de lignes blanches projetées. En évoluant sur cette surface, le corps du visiteur s’intègre à l’ensemble en devenant surface d’inscription, en modifiant l’organisation de ces lignes et en intervenant sur l’apparence globale du motif qu’elles composent. Les lignes s’éloignent ou se rapprochent les unes des autres formant des motifs proches du moiré, qui renvoient aussi bien au domaine du textile que des interférences ainsi nommées par les physiciens.

Cette surface d’inscription est couplée à un écran qui restitue les mouvements des lignes projetées au sol mais qui affiche également, depuis un capteur positionné sur le toit du bâtiment, les coordonnées GPS de la position de l’installation ainsi que celle des satellites qui traversent son ciel. La technologie GPS est utilisée dans cette installation comme un moyen de l’ancrer dans l’espace, elle introduit la question du point de vue, ancre l’installation dans une réalité spatiale surplombante qui étend la portée de l’installation en dehors de son propre espace.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: v2nl

Gravicells puts the senses on edge. This installation produces a visualization and sonification of the force of gravity acting upon the visitor. Interconnected sensors continuously measure the visitor’s weight, movements and speed. The resulting data are converted into physical audio-visual experience by various media systems.

One of the natural forces regulating life on earth most is gravity. Defined according to Newton’s Law as the force of attraction between bodies that have mass, we hardly seem to pause and contemplate this mundane fact of physics. Any child knows that when you drop something it will fall down to the earth and not float in mid-air. Grappling with earth’s gravity however, does pervade our everyday life, be that in the way we design objects, build our buildings, practice sports or transport ourselves.

Seiko Mikami’s and Sota Ichikawa’s responsive audio-visual environment ‘gravicells’ – Gravity and Resistance Project takes up the issue of gravity in relation to our bodies. Starting from the premise that gravity is not materialized without a counter force, i.e. resistance, Mikami and Ichikawa have designed a dynamic mixed reality space where the rub between the powers of gravity and resistance can be experienced physically by the visitors. The deconstruction of these natural phenomena shifts the visitor’s habitual sense of gravity, and hence alters the perception of one’s body in space.

All movements and changes made by participating visitors are transformed real-time into the movements of sound, light (LED) and geometrical images through the sensors, so that the whole space develops or changes in this interactive installation. The moment a participant stands and moves on the unsteady sensor-fitted floor, the variation of position, weight, and speed is automatically and continuously measured, analyzed, and translated into audio-visual representation, which generate substantial spatial changes. Overlapping with the real physical space, the computerized space reconstructs the spatial geometry, and distorts the coordinates through the participant’s weight and position. In addition, the position of the exhibition space is simultaneously measured by GPS, and with plural linked GPS satellites as part of the work it involves several observation points outside of the earth. By corollary the area of our perception has expanded, and confronts us with the fact that the installation site is moving relative to gravity as well.

In ‘gravicells’ – Gravity and Resistance Project gravity is used as a perceptive interface, and has to effect that it makes us conscious in a synaesthetic way of the natural forces surrounding us. As players we become autonomous cells in a larger system susceptible to the dynamics of gravity and resistance. By playing with two opposing forces we become aware of the potential and constraints the latter hold.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: ycamjp

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa “gravicells – gravity and resistance” was produced and subsequently unveiled at YCAM in May 2004, from where it embarked on a journey around the world. Celebrated exhibitions at twelve different locations in eight countries, including Tokyo, Berlin and Torino, solidified the piece’s reputation as one representative work of media art. This work provides a space with hypothetical dynamics having the opposing forces of gravity and resistance, through special devices and sensors. Walking freely in the site, audiences are able to feel gravity that they are seldom aware of, resistance to it, and the effects caused by other participants. All movements and changes made by participating audiences are transformed into the movements of sound and geometrical images through special sensors,.whole space develops or changes in this interactive installation.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: kiblixorg

Seiko Mikami (b. 1961, Shizuoka, Japan) has been showing large-scale installations themed on information society and the human body since the 1980s. In 1990s, most of works are interactive media art installations incorporating human perception, eye tracking project molecular informatics at Canon Artlab (1996), about acoustic sense and an inner body sound at NTT Intercommunication Center’s permanent collection (1997), gravicells on the theme of the gravity called the 6th consciousness in YCAM (2004). Her works have been exhibited and presented internationally, including Miro Museum (Spain, 1999), Musee des Beaux Arts de Nantes (France, 2000), Kulturhuset (Sweden, 2006), Kuenstlerhaus Vienna (Austria, 2010), National Art Museum of China/NAMOC (2011) and others. She also has exhibited works in the field of media art festivals around the world such as DEAF (Holland, 1995, 1996, 2004), transmediale Berlin (Germany, 2002, 2005, 2007), Share Festival (Italy, 2005), Ars Electronica (Austria, 2005), OOH Festival (Spain, 2006), MoiMulti Quebec (Canada, 2007), TESLA Berlin (Germany, 2007), Digital Culture Festival (UK, 2008). Published “Seiko Mikami Art works” at Diputacion Provincial De Malaga (Spain, 2004). Mikami is currently Professor of Media Art Lab at Tama Art University (Japan).
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: v2nl

Born in 1961, Shizuoka, Japan. She studied computer science at New York Institute of Technology; M.A. 1995. She moved to New York in 1991. Seiko is an artist whose works engage the various information environments that the human body occupies. The nervous system, viruses, information wars, and membranes have figured largely in her works. Media artist and researcher, Associate Professor at the Tama Art University in Tokyo (J), Department of Information Design. (Bio 1998)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: v2nl

Architect and media artist, lecturer at the Tama Art University in Tokyo, Department of Information Design. Since 1995 he has been running a project on the theme of spatial expressions to investigate different potentials for architecture, based on the relationships between body and viewpoint/observatory-point. In 1997 he participated in the project IO_DENCIES in Tokyo produced by Knowbotic Research. That same year he joined the Lifescape Institute, and was responsible for the basic and practical architectural design of “Hinaya Project.” In 1998, he founded “doubleNegatives,” an architectural unit that consists of professionals with different backgrounds. While working as an architect and director, in his free time he develops software, net-art, and conducts VJ performances at club events. In 2000 he took part in “Kankaku (Sense) Museum” founded in Miyagi Prefecture, and produced “dqpb #2.0-dynamic quadruple phonic building,” a permanent interactive work for the museum.