아트센터 나비미술관

ISEA2019 Special Exhibition: Lux Aeterna

ISEA2019 Special Exhibition: Lux Aeterna

2019.06.22 – 2019.07.28

Host/Organizer: Art Center Nabi

Sponsors: Ministry of Science and ICT

KOFAC(Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity)

Embassy of France Korea

French Institute of Seoul

The Japan Foundation Seoul

Partners: ISEA2019, ISEA International

Director Soh Yeong Roh 

Chief Curator HyeIn Jeon 

Curator Suhun Lee 

Coordinators / PR Yeajin Cho, Soyoung Lim, Yukyung Chung

Photograph and Video HoMan Kwon

Technical Supporter Junho Choi, JinYoung Ko (Gana Enterprise)

Translation Art&Writing 

Graphic Design DAADA Graphics

Exhibition Space Design Label 1571

Booklet Design Pansydaisy Corporation

Exhibition Venue & Open Hours

Asia Culture Center Creation Space 5

10:00 ~ 18:00

*Closed on Mondays & public holidays

Entrance Fee : Free

Nelo Akamatsu

Maurice Benayoun, Tobias Klein, Nicolás Mendoza

Cached Collective (Vytautas Jankauskas, Jon Flint, Felipe de Souza, Aline Martinez, Joana Mateus, Clément Bouttier, Ryan Dzelzkalns)

Jean-Philippe Côté

Rebecca Cummins, Paul Demarinis

Przemyslaw Jasielski

JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Gustavo Rincon, Kon Hyong Kim, Andrés Cabrera

Ryoichi Kurokawa

Han Lee

João Martinho Moura

Timo Niemeyer

María Molina Peiró

Tiare Ribeaux, Jody Stillwater

Roomtone

Arno Deustchbauer, Herwig Scherabon, Lukas Fliszar, Michael Ari

Goh Uozumi

David Young

Light has long been considered the source of life and the origin of all creation. It has existed in multifarious forms of metaphor and interpretation, as the cause that gives life, as the means of visibility, philosophical insight, joy, freedom, hope and Veritas, the ultimate truth. With the advent of the age of optics, the images created via the light and the scientific outputs of the light wave function as empirical data, consequently producing analogical facts in the form of direction, further going from the abstract and philosophical definition of light.

Inspired by the theme of ISEA2019 (25th International Symposium on Electronic Art) that would be held in Gwangju, the City of Light, “Lux Aeterna: Eternal Light” aims to rethink the values that constitute the life and role of human in contemporary society, mirroring the various meanings the light holds. Light unveils the unseen, sheds visibility upon what has not existed before and induces exploration of concepts invisible and ungraspable. At “Lux Aeterna: Eternal Light”, light is studied as the medium of connection to a new paradigm and the motivation and we look forward to exploring the role of humanity in the evermore accelerating technology-based society and the ‘values’ that ought to be sought within.

In the exhibition, seventeen media artworks that utilize cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence(AI), Blockchain and scientific discoveries from Life Science, Quantum Physics and other relative fields by both international and domestic artists are presented. From interactive artwork that infers the value of ‘values’ through transaction of the visualization of human values like love or power which work as a token to an installation work that raises question upon creativity and imagination of human by using algorithms to show ‘how computer imagines humans’ in real time, not to mention Virtual Reality cinematic work to readdress what defines ‘humanness’ by creatively examining human dreams and the errors made as incomplete beings, with diverse types of media artworks that captures different meanings and interpretations

of light, it is expected to envisage the present and the future of scientific development and the embedded human values.

In the time where the wave of fourth industrial revolution, distinction between real and virtual and the geological barriers are approached in complex methods with the advancement of science and technology, it is intended to reconceive what we desire and pursue in the contemporary society, reflecting upon the ‘values’ that are bespoken through the enhancements made. Aligned with ISEA2019, a different spectrum of light projected by the artworks from “Lux Aeterna: Eternal Light” is expected to aid in paving the way for a start of a new paradigm to seek ‘values’ in the age of technology, granting an invaluable experience to a ‘Brave New World’.

Artist / Artwork Description

Chozumaki

Nelo Akamatsu

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Chozumaki, 2017. Controllers, distilled water, electronic devices, glass vessels, magnets, plastic.

Chozumaki is a sound installation which consists of glass vessels filled with water. The circulation of water causes a vortex and sparkling bubbles produces clanging but sensitive sonority. These small sounds are amplified through the pipes and horns on the top of uniquely designed glass vessels. Chozumaki is an original word by the artist, which combines two Japanese words, Chozubachi (stone washbasin) and Uzumaki (vortex). Vortex is one of the fundamental elements of the universe. The galaxy, typhoons, vines and snails, they all have fractal vortex forms from the immense to the tiny. Vortex is deeply concerned with human aesthetic. As a typical example, the Golden Ratio is based on the shape of Vortex. In the field of fine arts, architecture and design, Golden Ratio is widely utilized for the expressions with harmonious beauty.

Chozubachi is a stone washbasin for guests to wash their hands in for purification when participating in a tea ceremony. Chozubachi has a function of making them notice that they are going to enter the eternal universe and inner sanctum of the tea ceremony from the outer world and their ordinary life. The design of top components of vessels is associated with human organs like cochlear ducts in ears, lungs, pancreas, heart and etc. If the time has come when the artificial intelligence overcome humans in every aspect of life, mankind may exist merely as organs of their bodies. In the narrative for Akamatsu’s artwork, humans as organs will listen to the sound of vortexes and at the same time identify with the universe. The sight and sound of the water vortex will remind viewers of crossing the boundary between the physical world and the psychological world and will extend their perception of vital organs.

Nelo Akamatsu creates artworks across several media such as installations with electric devices, event installations, video installations, sculptures, paintings and photos. Since his sound installation titled "CHIJIKINKUTSU" won the Golden Nica prize (Grand Prix) in Digital Musics & Sound Art category of Prix Ars Electronica in 2015, his artworks have been widely introduced in the exhibitions and art festivals in Austria, Germany, Spain, France, UK, Slovenia, Ukraine, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan and etc. In Japan, he had solo exhibitions at Mizuma Art Gallery, which is one of the leading galleries in the Japanese contemporary art scene.

Value of Values

Maurice Benayoun, Tobias Klein, Nicolás Mendoza

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Value of Values, 2019. 3D graphic generator, EEG headband, Blockchain, trading platform, computers, HD screens, massage chairs, projectors, QR ticket printer, touch screen, speakers, dimensions variable.

Value of Values (VoV) is a blockchain-based art project. It aims to find out the real, economic value of human values through EEG

(Electroencephalography, and biofeedback). VoV is an extension to the acclaimed Brain Factory project. In both, exhibition visitors (aka Brain workers) give – straight from their brain waves – a three- dimensional shape to abstract concepts, like FREEDOM, PEACE, MONEY, LOVE, POWER.

In VoV, the resulting shapes are brought into the context of an “ethical realism”, an objective representation of the individual and collective hierarchy of values. While Brain Factory deals with a wide range of human abstractions, VoV only gives shape to those that could be considered as human values. The neuro-designed shapes, produced by individual visitors, become named and numbered digital 3D models: FREEDOM 0001, FREEDOM 0002… FREEDOM 000X. Each numbered item is an artwork registered on the Blockchain. At the end of the process, the Brain Worker, the shaper of the value, becomes the owner of the Blockchain VoV and the owner of the 3D model, the “idea” of the shape. VoVs are convertible into Ethereum, a common crypto currency. The owner can sell or barter the VoV, or even freely use the shape to produce artefacts, artworks, or goods.

During the process, the visitor of the art show has become an artist giving shape to ideas, a curator validating the model according to the abstract concept, a collector preciously keeping the freshly minted token, an art dealer selling or bartering pieces of one’s collection of values for more “valuable” ones barter them for MONEY0088, he or she defines the relative value of all the involved values.

With thousands of similar transactions, we can monitor in real-time the relative value of human values, for one person, a region, a country, a continent. If the median price of MONEY (i.e. the median price of all minted MONEY tokens) is 3 ETH or 1200 USD and the median price of LOVE is 240 USD, we get a clear idea of the relative value of these values. The observation of the trading process produces real-time monitoring of human values in their transactional milieu. VoV is at the same time a real currency, a critical metaphor of the art production narrative, and a dynamic reflection on its founding ontology. Value of Values (VoV) explores the nexus of human creation, the value systems of artistic production, and our insatiable desire for reified representations of human thought.

The result is a Global Art Project based on Critical Fusion, the speculative and convertible merging of Fiction and Reality.

Maurice Benayoun (MoBen, 莫奔) is a conceptual media artist based in Hong Kong and Paris. Pioneer of new media art, his work has been a continuous attempt to redefine art practice and the place of the artist in Society. Through VR, AR, AI and urban media art, MoBen explores the limits of the promises of advanced media, unveiling their societal impact beyond their technological and aesthetic potential. Creating subtle though spectacular interactive artworks, he has been exhibited in major international museums, biennials and festivals in 24 countries around the World. MoBen received close to 30 awards including 4 Ars Electronica awards (and the coveted Golden Nica). Since 2012, Maurice Benayoun is a professor of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.

www.moben.net

Tobias Klein works in the fields of Architecture, Art, Design and Interactive Media Installation. His work generates a syncretism of contemporary CAD/CAM technologies with the site and culturally specific design narratives, intuitive non-linear design processes, and historical cultural references. His works are exhibited internationally at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Antwerp Fashion Museum, the London Science Museum, the V&A, the Bellevue Arts Museum, Museum of Glass, Museum of Moscow and Vancouver. He currently lives in Hong Kong and works as an assistant professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.

Nicolás Mendoza is a Colombian multidisciplinary scholar, architect, artist, researcher and investor. His PhD research explored the structures that support the emergence of non-state currencies, such as blockchain technology, from an anthropological perspective. His research engagement with Bitcoin and therefore with blockchain technology began as early as 2010, serving in the editorial board of Bitcoin Magazine, and co-editing the issue on P2P Currency of the Journal of Peer Production in 2013. His writings have been published in platforms such as Radical Philosophy and Al-Jazeera.

Cached

Cached Collective
(Vytautas Jankauskas, Jon Flint, Felipe de Souza, Aline Martinez, Joana Mateus, Clément Bouttier, Ryan Dzelzkalns)

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Cached, 2018. Arduino uno, Intel NUC PC, LCD screen, mirror, speaker, thermal printer, 770x480x100 (mm).

Cached is a personalised interactive experience that engages with the repercussions of our individual online presence. Our online personality is cached and used to create a digital model of each of us to learn as much as possible. The cached experience offers a glimpse of your digital self, revealing how the outline of your online activity is quantified, interpreted, and profiled by contemporary social media algorithms.

Upon entering the room, the spectator is left alone with a glowing tablet, prompting to log in. Once they have connected, a mirror lights up and greets the spectator by their name. The following experience takes the form of personalised audiovisual storytelling, to illustrate just how your activities online contribute to the way in which machines see you.

Based on a textual analysis of your social media posts, Cached reveals your character traits, interests and consumer preferences. Using IBM Watson, the installation generates a psychological profile that describes your personality, behaviors, and predilections. It illustrates how machines are learning to perceive you as a social creature and the assumptions they make about you. At the end of the experience, all personal data is erased, and the visitor receives a unique printed receipt containing a summary of the analysis. It is the only record of their data, which can be shared, kept secret, or destroyed at their convenience.

The interpretation of this sort might not be as accurate as direct as data on Clicks, GPS points or biometrics. Nevertheless, the very idea that we are perceived as social beings rather than quantitative datasets raises the data privacy discourse to a new level. Cached is a userfriendly wake-up call; the experience invites you to critically think about the reflection of your personal online behavior casts.

Cached Collective is an international group of creatives of diverse backgrounds, who are dedicated to exploring how technology influences our individual lived realities. Because of the impenetrable way that modern technology functions, Cached Collective strives to design impactful experiences that can be easily understood by a wide audience. Cached Collective makes the intangible tangible. Cached Collective creates impactful experiences that delve into data, algorithmic complexity, and obscure infrastructure, especially focusing on how these affect the individual.

Cached Collective first met during a summer residency in the South of France, the Hive. Each of them brings distinct expertise to the collaborations that they leverage to create unique, multidisciplinary experiences. This broad base of specialities—from engineering to fashion design, from poetry to programming—allows them to approach our topics with a unique eye.

Yöti

Jean-Philippe Côté

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Yöti, The Algorithmic Portrait Artist, 2017. Computer, webcam, plotters, silver pens, black paper, plastic tubing and lighting, 160cm × 210cm × 110cm.

Yöti is an automated portrait artist that uses salvaged 1980s pen plotters to draw, on actual paper, the likeness of participants using algorithmically-generated squiggly lines. From up close, the portraits look like an abstract collection of linear markings. However, from a distance, the lines clearly reveal Yöti’s interpretation of the visitor’s visage.

Yöti can be thought of as a deconstructed photobooth. Just like the good old analog photobooths, Yöti takes a few minutes to draw a portrait. During this time, visitors can witness their face slowly being drawn on paper by the plotters. The installation invites the visitor to reconsider its relation to anticipation and immediateness. This feels particularly relevant in these times of instant gratification through selfies, SnapChat and Instagram. By purposefully using “outdated” technologies, the installation also questions our relation to obsolescence, ephemerality and permanence.

Furthermore, it also takes interest in our rapport to the physical world. All participants leave with a physical object: a piece of paper bearing their portrait. Virtual, artificial and augmented realities are all fine but sometimes it just feels good to hold on to an actual, tangible object.

Born and based in Montreal (Canada), Jean-Philippe Côté (a.k.a. djipco) is an artist and teacher. His hybrid creations, sourced in cybernetics and prosthetics, explore this juncture where the roles of humans and machines overlap. Using open source software and ‘obsolete’ hardware, he puts together interactive installations that bring back a sense of tangibility to this growingly artificial world of ours. Leveraging his early years as an award-winning developer, he devises algorithmic approaches to reinventing reality and creating art. This makes him a regular contributor to the open source community especially in the field of physical computing and creative computing.

His subject of choice is the human face which he often draws using micro or macro line segments. While somewhat figurative, his work always challenges the viewer’s first perceptions and usually calls for further scrutiny. Using generative and algorithmic processes, his creations are time and again the result of emergence and serendipity. Côté’s work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals internationally in venues such as Venice’s Arsenale, Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, Montreal’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwangju’s Asia Culture Center and Fukuoka City’s Science Museum. He holds a master’s degree in communication with a specialization in experimental media from Université du Québec à Montréal. He teaches interactive media at Édouard-Montpetit College.

Moon Pointer

Rebecca Cummins, Paul Demarinis

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Moon Pointer, 2019. Acrylic, digital prints, electronics, metal, 61 x 61 x 190.5(cm).

Where is the moon right now?

Moon Pointer is a slow-time kinetic sculpture that continually points at the moon, wherever it is located, whether above or below the horizon, in daylight or night, clear skies or overcast. A computer-controlled mechanism will calculate the current position of the moon as viewed from the city of Gwangju - and point to it, describing a continual presence to the moon’s movement.

Its design refers to the history of scientific instrumentation and the timing is incremental. It is formally and mechanically minimal – and calculated to perform the singular task of tracking the moon. By tracing the entire path of the moon’s complex movement, Moon Pointer offers viewers a heightened awareness of their spatial and temporal place in the universe and a series of insights into the most frequently considered object of vernacular celestial observation.

Moon Pointer consists of a computer-controlled mechanism that computes the location of the moon by accessing locally stored ephemeris data in accord with the current local time. The time is acquired by reference to a local real time clock module and checked against network time via a Wifi connection. The computers use these positions to run a set of motors that move their respective pointers to the correct azimuth and elevation. Photographic images (from NASA) accompany the moon pointer and depict the daily phases of the moon as seen at lunar transit from Gwangju for the period of the exhibition. A related version was commissioned by the Western Washington University and the Washington State Arts Commission.

Joint projects: Cummins / DeMarinis, Luna Drift: Sun and Moon Pointers and Light Reign; The 2006 Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai Museum; ISEA at the The Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland, 2004, the 2008 Biennial of Seville, Spain and a Washington State Arts Commission for Western Washington University, 2014.

Consultant: Woody Sullivan; Mechatronic Design: James Hughes.

Rebecca Cummins explores the sculptural, experiential and sometimes humorous possibilities of light and natural phenomena, often referencing the history of optics in installations that have included a machine for making rainbows, a photographic rifle, paranoid dinner-table devices - and a variety of sculptural and photographic approaches to marking time. Currently, she is utilizing microscopy in the Wordeman Lab, University of Washington. Cummins has exhibited widely internationally and has also completed several public art commissions. She is a Professor in the School of Art, Design and Art History, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Paul DeMarinis has been making noises with wires, batteries and household appliances since the age of four. One of the first artists to use microcomputers, DeMarinis has toiled since the 1970s in the areas of interactive software, synthetic speech, noise and obsolete or impossible media. He has created installations, performances and public artworks throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. He is a Professor of Art at Stanford University in California.

Oracle

Przemyslaw Jasielski

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Oracle, 2017. Arduino, computer, digital camera, electronic components, LCD monitor, dimensions variable.

Oracle is a palm-reading machine, foretelling the future of the viewer.

In a perverse manner, the installation brings an experience of a myth of oracle, which in an enigmatic way can predict the future. The work recalls subconscious cultural traditions such as chiromancy and ancient Greek oracle, whose foretell is difficult to verify.

After scanning the viewer’s papillary lines, the machine tells his or her fortune. The whole installation is a programmed machine that randomly reveals its personality – sometimes the prophecies tease the viewer directly (presenting messages like “how about a date tonight” or “you have such beautiful eyes” from time to time). This is yet another strange and contradictory experience since the viewer tends to adopt a meek and pious stance, in expectation of a scientific vision. Instead, what the viewer has is another aporia of rationality: the machine is demanded to legitimise scientifically an ancient human superstition. Nor is there much sense in the fact that the word ‘oracle’ has entered the colloquial language to mean an unquestioned authority, connoisseur or expert in a particular field.

The work plays with the concept of Artificial Intelligence and its aim to create machines with human characteristics, with an ironic take on the confidence we place in modern technology. This is yet another author’s experiment with the emotionality of machines, or rather the emotionality roused in a human due to contact with a machine. Since a mechanical device tends to be perceived as impartial, people are inclined to take its pronouncements more seriously than they would with those of a street fortune teller. Thus, the artwork encourages reflection on trust in technology and the dependence on it, as well as the fear of its domination.

Przemysław Jasielski is an artist, researcher, experimenter based in Poland, combining art with science and technology. Member of HAT Research Center. He creates installations, objects, drawings and photographs. In the creative process, he approaches work with the attitude of an engineer, adapting the precise planning and scientific research, with the main focus on the conceptual content. His works confront the actual present reality with its transformation to allow the viewer to observe it in a new, fresh way, and they usually contain a specific, critical sense of humor.

Jasielski took part in several exhibitions – including solo shows such as Paper Bridge at Tokyo Wonder Site (Tokyo, Japan, 2012), Analog Immigration at CSU Galleries (Cleveland OH, USA, 2013), and group shows - L’arte differente: MOCAK al MAXXI at MAXXI (Rome, Italy, 2016), Draft Systems at WRO Media Art Biennale 2017 (Wroclaw, Poland, 2017), Nonsense Technologies at MOCAK (Krakow, Poland, 2017).

ETHERIAL

JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Gustavo Rincon, Kon Hyong Kim, Andrés Cabrera

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ETHERIAL - Quantum Form from the Virtual to the Material, 2018. Virtual Reality, Computers, 3D glasses, HTC VIVE, stereo projectors, stereo speakers, dimensions variable.

The nature and behavior of matter and energy on the atomic or subatomic level, quantumphysics, lends to its ethereal nature, gossamer wings, those substances that are immutable however untouchable. To touch the untouchable, to understand and know what is real but cannot be seen and to experience it; to truly experience immateriality as substance, form, and shape that is dynamic, transformative and truly alive, constantly changing but continually unchanged, the vibration of waveforms intermingling as one form, one shape one spirit, into a myriad of forms.

Etherial will bring the quantum form into the material, through virtual reality, spatial augmented reality and material form. The work will consist of both virtual reality and spatial augmented, a completely immersive VR space that will allow viewers to interact with the virtual world of quantum mechanics in real time through a physically rendered sculpture that will be tracked with gestural sensors. Etherial can also be interactively viewed un-embodied through VR headsets. Two controllers into a completely immersive VR space that will allow performers to sculpt quantum mechanics in real time in total synchrony with one another and the virtual environment that they control.

In keeping with the theme of “LUX”, the quantum, revealed, the hydrogen-like atom combinations feature light-emitting wave function combinations that move toward the science of the phenomenon, while the quantum, suggests the ethereal nature of spirit in the form of light, ETHERIAL/IMMUTABLE – to touch the untouchable.

Lead Artist – Composer, Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, creator of Etherial, is Director and Chief Scientist of the AlloSphere Research Facility and Professor of Media Arts and Technology and Music, in the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Her research focuses on creative computational systems, content, and facilities design. Her 35 years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of a multi-million dollar sponsored research program for the University of California—the Digital Media Innovation Program. She was Chief Scientist of the Program from 1998 to 2003. The culmination of her creativity and research is the AlloSphere, a 30- foot diameter, 3-story high metal cylinder inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive/interactive scientific/artistic investigation of multidimensional data sets.

http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/

Collaborators

Gustavo Rincon – Media Artist, Sculptor, Graphics Immersive Artist, Creator of the material-rendered sculpture: Gustavo Alfonso Rincon is educated as an architect, visual artist and currently is a PhD student in the Graduate Program in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) at UCSB, and a member of the AlloSphere Research Group. He holds Masters Degrees in Architecture/Urban Design from UCLA as well as a Masters in Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts.

http://w2.mat.ucsb.edu/grincon

Kon Hyong Kim – Graphics Researcher/Artist, Calibration, Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) Research, Creator of the SAR Installation Environment. Kon Hyong Kim is currently a PhD student in the MAT and a member of the AlloSphere Research Group. Kim’s research focuses on the analysis and application of modern graphics rendering and calibration techniques and the integration of SAR and VR technologies.

http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/html/people.html

Andrés Cabrera – Distributed Multimedia Software Design, AlloSphere Media Systems Engineer, AlloSphere Research Facility, University of California Santa Barbara, PhD in Music Technology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Ireland, Cabrera’s expertise includes 3D spatial audio and multimedia systems design.

http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/html/people.html

unfold.alt

Ryoichi Kurokawa

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unfold.alt, 2016. Audiovisual Installation. 4K Video, two channel sound, single channel, 04'00", Ed. 6+2AP

unfold.alt is a single screen version of unfold which is originally developed as an installation. It contains 10 phases presented in reverse chronological order of stellar formation. In the original installation version, they are arranged in chronological order as: Interstellar medium, Molecular cloud, Massive star impact, Filament formation, Pre-stellar core, Protostar formation, Nuclear fusion and magnetic field, Supernova, Gravitational collapse, Neutron star. Inspired by the latest discoveries in the field of astrophysics, unfold.alt seeks to translate into sounds and images the phenomena surrounding the formation and evolution of stars.

Ryoichi Kurokawa is concerned with the synaesthetic, merging audible and visual materials, in the service of an art/science project inspired by recent discoveries. These findings have been made by astrophysicists at CEA-Irfu, based on data produced by the satellites of the European Space Agency and NASA and more specifically by the Herschel space telescope. The telescope's observations of far infrared radiation have revealed some of the conditions of star birth and the history of the life of galaxies, over the course of 10 billion years. In addition to this data -which allows us to trace the cosmological history of star formation, especially the filamentary structure of molecular clouds where stars are born- the artist also based his logic on numerical simulations intended to model the universe and its structures, produced by astrophysicists at CEA-Irfu, with the help of supercomputers. The project, created under the supervision of astrophysicist (and researcher at CEA-Irfu) Vincent Minier, also enables the viewer to go beyond research and scientific discovery, in order to question the representation and publication of the data collected.

Born in 1978, lives and works in Berlin, Germany, Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa is a true poet of the transformative cinema, lyrically transfiguring the analogue representations of perceived nature into digital streams of vertiginous imagery & emotion. The architecturally crafted precision of his sensitively synched fragmentary images placed side by side on the viewer’s retina, tends to displace the persistence of blurred memory under the effect of boundless luminosity.

Some of Kurokawa’s significant solo and group exhibitions and performances include "objectum", Takuro Someya Contemporary Art (Japan 2018), "Coder le Monde", Centre Pompidou (France 2018), "The Dream Of Forms", Palais de Tokyo (France 2017), "unfold", FACT (England 2016), Ordered Disorder, Espacio Fundacion Telefonica (Peru 2015), "Turbulences", Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton (France 2012), "One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy" - The 54th Venice Biennale (Italy 2011), Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Germany 2010), and "Synthesis", Tate Modern (England 2007).

Concept, Direction, Composition, Programming, Design: Ryoichi Kurokawa

Programming: Hiroshi Matoba

Producer: Nicolas Wierinck

Scientific Consultation: Vincent Minier/CEA-Irfu, Paris-Saclay

Scientific Dataset: CEA (Herschel HOBYS, COAST, Frédéric Bournaud, Sacha Brun, Pascal Tremblin, Patrick Hennebelle, Rémi Hosseini-Kazeroni), ESA, NASA, BLAST Experiment, SuperCOSMOS H-alpha Survey

Co-commissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Stereolux and University of Salford Art Collection

Co-produced by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Stereolux/Scopitone, University of Salford Art Collection, Arcadi and ICRéAM

With support from CEA-Irfu, Paris-Saclay (Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission/Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe)

Produced by Studio RYOICHI KUROKAWA

LamX

Han Lee

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LamX, 2019. Computer, controllers, edison light bulbs, motion sensor, projectors, dimensions variable.

Light. Joy. Playground.

Starry and emotionally warm lights bloom out and reach to your heart. Light, the first thing of the beginning interacts to your motions. It actively responds to you by bursting with positive energy.

LamX is an interactive light artwork that simulates the light talking to you. Physical light bulbs with digital light waves make a mixed reality and unique environment. It is a delightful dialogue, an aesthetic scene, and a beautiful moment. When redefining the light in the artistic language, Lee was interested in how light spreads out and fills the air when it slows down. With the question “How does light interact when considered a living creature?”, LamX was given a personality which is shown through the choreography of lighting.

When interacting with LamX, the light leads and follows the viewer wherever one goes. It is positive and waiting to play with humans. It calls and invites the viewer to the playground and shelter. Lee often brings rain into his artwork as a sample of immersive sound and dynamic reactions. Rain to him symbolizes the power of life that comes alive by its movement. Rain fills the air emotionally like a light. He borrowed it, the result making the analog emotions of light richer. He uses round and line which are 0 and 1, as primary graphic elements. The binary codes are aligned with wires, light bulbs, and ripples. LamX also has two light shows full of emotional scenes and story-telling. Each is a 7min-length unique light show that performs at a certain time with motion graphics, lightings, and motivating emotional music that has been composed and performed by Lee.

Han Lee is a New York-based new media artist who captures nature and transforms it into a form of mechanical elements with physical computing and programmed digital arts. He tries to imitate nature by making his artwork come alive and interact with visitors. He is best known for immersive interactive light artwork, LamX, that presents the powerful invisible world beyond small light objects. He breaks the limitation of the physical world by expanding with digital technology, a storyline, and music.

He is also a well-known designer, a motion designer, and a musician. Lee has won various international prestigious awards in the commercial design industry and his artwork has been shown in many places, including New York, Jersey City, Atlanta, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jerusalem, Haifa, Suwon, Jeju Island, and Seoul. He also has collaborated with major companies across the world and used to serve as a juror of various awards.

www.hanlee.com

How Computers Imagine Humans?

João Martinho Moura

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How Computers Imagine Humans?, 2017. Code, iMac, projectors, speakers, dimensions variable.

In this media artwork, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used against AI to discover How Computers Imagine Humans?, using a selected computer visual noise (one computer) and an AI face detector system (another computer). Both systems are running in real-time against each other, using just built-in cameras to communicate. In recent years, face detection technologies have been widely used by artists to create digital art. Face detection provides new forms of interaction and allows digital artifacts to detect the presence of human beings, through video capture and facial detection, in realtime. In this work, an algorithm proposed by Paul Viola and Michael Jones, is explored to generate imagined faces from visual randomness. Unusual use of the facial detection algorithms intended to do the opposite of what it is supposed to achieve: instead of trying to locate and capture faces, it generates facial images ‘imagined’ by a computer through the exploration of hypothetical possibilities.

How Computers Imagine Humans? focuses on a particular point: humans have created methods and instructions so that computers can easily detect themselves, and, in this case, this knowledge is used to generate abstract pictorial face results. More than what it offers in terms of visualization of what is behind algorithms, this work, as it is presented, with two machines interacting with each other without a wired or wireless connection, demonstrates the ‘knowledge’ humans try to implement into machines to detect themselves — awareness about these technologies and their effects (positive or negative) on the society. The result is a ghost-human face, made by mathematics and probabilities, appearing very slowly as the algorithms work over time.

João Martinho Moura is a researcher and media artist born in Portugal. His interests lie in digital art, intelligent interfaces, digital music, and computational aesthetics. Has a particular interest in real-time visualization, art & science, and interactive digital artifacts. For the past decade, he’s been adopting new ways to represent the body in digital media, creating interactive audiovisual artifacts, mostly represented by monochromatic visual abstractions and minimalist lines. Moura has presented his work and research in a variety of art venues and conferences worldwide and has collaborated in art/science works for INL (International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory), ESA (European Space Agency) and the European Commission STARTS (Arts and Science) initiative. Moura is a member of the Braga Media Arts, UNESCO Creative Cities Network and has received in Lisbon, the National Multimedia Art & Culture Award, for his contributions in the field of the media arts in Portugal. His work was included in Curated Collections Processing curated collection (USA, 2008), Selected Works Ars Electronica Animation Festival (Linz, 2012), the SLSA Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (USA, 2013), the NATO Arts Program (Brussels, 2019), among others.

Value Manifesto

Timo Niemeyer

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Value Manifesto, 2015 - 2019. Decryptor, IoT circuit board, metal, nixie tubes (R|Z568M), perspex, 580 x 135 x 180 mm. Edition of 250.

Value Manifesto declares its own commercial value to be art, as the first crypto-multiple* in the history of art. Value Manifesto is accessible to everyone via the internet and can be traded via its own marketplace without intermediaries and collusion. The price of the editions is determined by the Value Manifesto’s Blockchain based web platform on which bids are accepted for the acquisition of a single edition. Each crypto-multiple of a limited edition of 250 units is represented by an ERC-271 token on the Ethereum Blockchain. The value (defined in Swiss Francs) can be seen on the Value Manifesto bidding platform and on all 250 manufactured Value Manifesto IoT decryptor displays.

The reduction of the present artistic concept to its market value is a provocative statement in the ages of a hyper-commercialized, multi-billion dollar art market. In the case of the Value Manifesto, the prices are not created by galleries, auction houses and collector circles, but by real and unfiltered market request. In its existence in a purely digital form as a crypto-token, it introduces the philosophy of the technically reproduced multiple to the Zeitgeist of the digital age. The time has come to experience the moment of Blockchain Enlightenment in the art market and question the market authorities and their non-transparent business approach of the past. The principle of this project stands for the moment of enlightenment in the art market. As a continuous and long-term experiment, the findings of Value Manifesto shall be used to demonstrate the application of Blockchain echnologies in the art market.

*Multiple: a technically produced art edition

Timo Niemeyer is an art historian with a focus on European Avant-Gardes and art market advisor and developed the artistic concept of the Value Manifesto since 2015. Niemeyer studied Art History, Social Anthropology and Law at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His vision is a smooth and democratic embedding of cultural and especially artistic heritage in the forthcoming digital age in the context of IR4. Niemeyer developed Value Manifesto as an interdisciplinary art project connecting Avant-Garde theories, stateof-the-art hardware and Blockchain technology.

Technical Concept: Dr. Matthias Frank

Hardware: Dalibor Farny

Trimplement (Platform of Value Manifesto) :

Matthias Gall

Natalia Martchouk

Thijs Reus

One Year Life Strata

María Molina Peiró

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One Year Life Strata, 2017. 3D print, code, computer, screens, speakers, mouse, wearable camera, dimensions variable.

During one year María Molina Peiró carried a wearable camera taking a photo every 30 seconds. The enormous collection of photos collected by the camera are shown in an online archive that instead of “remembering”, creates creative amnesia of her year´s digital memory.

One Year Life Strata proposes a visual metaphor of forgetting by transforming the digital images into what is likely the ultimate memory trace that will remain from us: the geological record. The project, in a sort of digital geology, mines the data from the strata and invites to investigate one year of María Molina Peiro´s life through an AI vision system which doesn’t concerned about the personal memories include on those photos but in the collection of patterns and numbers they contain.

María Molina Peiró is a Spanish filmmaker and audiovisual artist, with a background in fine arts. She works in an open format, mixing film, experimental animation and new media. Her films and installations often unfold layered realities that connect humans, technology and nature. She is particularly interested in memory systems (from geology to digital memory) and the relation between cinema and science. Her current research focuses on humanity’s constant struggle with its temporal and spatial limitations, and how this struggle has driven civilization and technology to change our relationship with nature, time and our understanding of life itself.

María Molina Peiró has presented her work in film festivals and exhibitions internationally, including: International Film Festival Rotterdam IFFR, Rencontres Internationales, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, International Film Festival Oberhausen, Louvre Museum, EYE Film Museum, ISEA Korea, Indie Lisboa International Film Festival, London Science Museum, MACBA, VIS Vienna Shorts, Hong-Gah Museum (Taipei), MATADERO (Madrid), Taiwan Video Art Biennale or Goshorts, amongst many others. Peiró holds a BA from University of the Arts, Sevilla and graduated Cum Laude from the Master of Film at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam.

Cyanovisions:The Transmutation of Light Harvesting Bodies

Tiare Ribeaux, Jody Stillwater

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Cyanovisions: The Transmutation of Light Harvesting Bodies, 2019. Single-Channel Video and Installation, 3D print, air pumps, cyanobacteria cultures, glass, silicone tubing, speakers, dimensions variable.

Cyanovisions: The Transmutation of Light Harvesting Bodies focuses on cyanobacteria, the first light-harvesting organisms on the planet to photosynthesize. Humans generate the pollutants that cause aggregations of toxic cyanobacteria blooms, yet we also create new life forms through synthetic biology, genetic engineering, and artificial life. What would the future look like if humans and cyanobacteria merged membranes, genes, and metabolisms? Inspired by recent experiments in CRISPR gene editing technologies, Cyanovisions posits potentials for biological hybridity and scientific spiritualities with microbial species that recognize the inextricable relationship of humans to those of other organisms. Though the trajectory for millennia has distanced the human body and consciousness from the chemical processes and organisms that it is composed of, it is eternally linked to forces, processes, and organisms. Cyanovisions offers potentialities of symbiotically living with both other species and our technologies as extensions of nature. Cyanobacteria are one of the most ancient life forms; they were responsible for first creating oxygen on our planet as the first lightharvesting organisms. Through endosymbiosis, they became the chloroplasts that plants use to process sunlight into energy today. Cyanovisions imagines a future where the light harvesting pigment phycocyanin is engineered into human bodies not only to surpass their limitations but to protect against the toxic conditions that we have induced on the planet. Portrayed in the short film are landscapes of algal blooms and the inner workings of a DIY Biology Lab. Science fact becomes science fiction as lab technicians move from routine experiments into an embodied ritual as part of a speculative experiment. As a cine-poem, this piece meditates on different states of bacteria and water, the transformation of light, and the embodiment of this transmutation. Photobioreactor systems growing cyanobacteria cultures are incorporated into the installation, along with speculative future prostheses of the human body.

Tiare Ribeaux is a Hawaiian-American new media and interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker and curator based in the Bay Area. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of B4BEL4B Gallery and co-founder of REFRESH Art, Science, and Technology. As an interdisciplinary artist, her work explores the entanglements of human technologies, biology and infrastructures with mythologies, the environment, and microbial/nonhuman species. She is interested in living systems, deep/dark/media ecologies, rhizomatic networks, speculative futures, multi-species ontologies, and collaborative entanglements. She has shown work both nationally and internationally, including Transmediale, IZOLYATSIA, Akademie Schloss Solitude + ZKM, ISEA Hong Kong, Southern Exposure, and Tokyo Fashion Week. She has worked with Leonardo//ISAST, the de Young Museum, Gray Area Art and Technology, MIT Media Lab, the California Academy of Sciences, Swissnex San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Fort Mason Center for the Arts, and the Oakland Museum of California, among others.

Jody Stillwater is a writer, director & creative technologist from San Francisco. His films + projects are based in dream logic and tactile reality, with a modern/transforming approach to visual semiotics, grounded in realism and classical narrative. He has screened films at Marfa Film Festival, Choreoscope Int’l Dance Film Festival in Barcelona, Denver Film Festival, Bucharest Int’l Dance Film Festival, Copenhagen Fashion Film Festival, and has participated in the Tribeca Film Festival Hacks Lab, the San Francisco Dance Film Festival Co-Lab, and was the featured film artist at APAture 2018. He holds a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. As a sound recordist, films he has worked on have screened at Sundance, Edinburgh Film Festival, SXSW, Chicago International, Tribeca and SFIFF. He has made films in the Netherlands, Colombia, Austria, India, Chile, Slovenia, the UK and across the United States.

In The Gray

Roomtone

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In the Gray, 2018. Virtual Reality and Video Installation, Computer, Oculus Rift, projector, speaker, dimensions variable, 6'00.

While humans are dreaming, the physical human body exists, but does not ‘exist’ in our perception, and human consciousness constantly moves back and forth between the boundary. During this process, we experience surreal and random senses in the virtual space called a dream, and it symbolizes an aspect of unpredictable possibilities of the humanity. During this process, we experience surreal and random senses in the virtual space called a dream, and it symbolizes an aspect of unpredictable possibilities of humanity.

In the Gray (2018) is a VR (Virtual Reality) film that probes into the relationship between error and humanity in human dreams so that artificial intelligence can perfectly mimic mankind. The title ‘Gray’ symbolizes a variable area that cannot easily be dealt with in a world where black and white are clear-cut and that there are numerous random layers that exist between clarity and obscurity. This work depicts a conversation of artificial intelligence and a dreaming human being in the beginning, and it unravels the contemplation on ‘humanness’ that is illustrated through error and incompleteness in virtual reality.

*This artwork was created by the support of ZER01NE.

Roomtone is an artist collective that uses VR for game development, sound design and media art creation. Jeon Jinkyung and Kim Dongwook, the two artists of the group, create media-based experiences through virtual reality, especially when game and music emerge in digital space. They are seeking to present the possibilities and direction of their own artistic language through the game engine which blurs the boundaries of media art and game, and also by the experimental production and storytelling mainly produced with sound. Selected as the creator for KALEIDOSCOPE (2017) and being invited at the VR LA and NYC Independent Film Festival for the work Depth of Circle, Roomtone’s artwork has been exhibited at various international and domestic festivals including Seoul International New Media Festival (NeMaf).

Afterlife
Arno Deutschbauer, Herwig Scherabon, Lukas Fliszar, Michael Ari

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Afterlife, 2019. Audiovisual Experience in Virtual Reality, Computer, chairs, Oculus Rift, projector, screen, speakers, dimensions variable.speakers, dimensions variable.

Afterlife is an immersive virtual reality experience inspired by Buddhist contemplation techniques where we can escape the sensory overload of our physical environment for a moment. Everything in this world is designed to focus the attention to simple things like colours, light and droning sounds or to let the spectator experience the vastness of space. Afterlife is created in collaboration with Herwig Scherabon, Arno Deutschbauer, Michael Ari and Lukas Fliszar, commissioned by sound: frame. It aids in understanding the inconsistency of life and to detach oneself from one’s ideals and expectations. The experience invites the audience to be just a spectator and let go of his or her thoughts, expectations and worries.

The collective behind Afterlife consists of Herwig Scherabon, Arno Deutschbauer and 101(Lukas Fliszar, Michael Ari). The creative menage joined forces in the studio of 101 where a lot of discourse about the possibilities of virtual reality sparked the idea for the installation. The artists and designers share the feeling that space as a commodity is becoming sparse and they sense a general need for the retreat from society’s hectic modern lifestyle. Afterlife is a collective effort to fuse the worlds of art, technology and contemplation. Everyone involved comes from different backgrounds like design, 3D art, coding, and music production. Together they want to bring their knowledge into virtual reality and explore the graphics and immersive possibilities of this technology.

New Order / Siren Call?
Goh Uozumi

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New Order / Siren Call?, 2016~. mixed media, dimensions variable.

New Order / Siren Call? visualizes the existence of cryptocurrency as the origin of the new order. The cryptocurrency is a new electronic & programmable money based on cryptography and distributed network technology, typified by Bitcoin and Blockchain. The visualizationof-existence means to show everything that exists, including its structure, history, future, and thought. New Order / Siren Call? does not have a fixed form and consists of symbolic pieces distributedly. To Goh, cryptocurrency is regarded as one of the movements of automation. Goh states that human beings are automating intelligence, labor, and money and the cryptocurrency symbolizes the automation of Trust, calling it "TRUSTLESS".

For Uozumi, TRUSTLESS is a new property that humans acquired for the first time in history. It has a potentiality to shift the human society and species system to the next phase by entrusting trust, as natural property like love, to the algorithm. Considering the meaning of what the algorithm acquires as the natural property, Uozumi believes this new technology is already changing the economic ecosystems rapidly, consequently leading to ‘the new order’ of the contemporary society. Going further from symbolizing/calling Blockchain- the “inorganic and complicated resource management protocols”- as mere ‘Coin’, New Order / Siren Call? aims to question the ‘positive’ future fueled with the rationality and will of humanity, perceiving the very technology as ‘Siren’s voice’.

Goh Uozumi aims to intervene in historical paradigm shifts by art, and creates works/systems by algorithm based methodologies with taking other intelligence/existence than human beings into consideration. Since 2014, he worked on the establishment of "TRUSTLESS" which means to entrust trust/belief to the algorithm technically, as an artistic concept. It’s an axis of the automation movements such as intelligence, contract, labor, and trust.

New Order/Siren Call? that visualizes the existence of cryptocurrency and 空の国家-State of Empty that builds nation-state by artificial intelligence were exhibited at ICC in 2016. Trustless Trust/Mk.God that generates memories of future artifacts was awarded the DigitalChoc 2015 by Institut Francais etc. OBSERVER N that extends theory-of-life reality by decentralized autonomous network system was exhibited at YCAM in 2012, and F - void sample that goes across void and perception was awarded the Japan Media Art Festival 2009.

Learning Nature

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Learning Nature, 2018-2019. Archival Inkjet Print, 30x30cm, AP

Is it inevitable that only our largest organizations, with their vast data sets, will decide how we will use AI? What if, instead, we could start small, to work at the scale of the personal and to engage directly with AI? Could doing so allow us to develop new intuitions and understandings of what the technology is, and what it could enable?

Learning Nature is a set of photographs generated by an Artificial Intelligence(AI), taught with David Young’s photographs of upstate flowers using a GAN(Generative Adversarial Network)-an artificial intelligence/machine learning technology. Learning Nature started out in the hope of creating a new perspective towards AI and exploring new possibilities through an aesthetic experience. Young states that AI was utilized as a tool in Learning Nature in the rural context of upstate New York and the domain of nature where the painting was used to express the relationship between mankind and nature at Hudson River School. The result is a unique interpretation of AI visually drawn out, which not only captures the machine’s understanding of the subject but also raises questions on the subject of interpretation and misinterpretation of nature. With Learning Nature, it is intended to rethink about what it would mean for an AI today to understand/interpret that same nature, further pointing to the anthropomorphizing of technology, data, and the human “intelligence” in the code.

David Young has spent his entire career at the leading edge of emerging technologies. His current work explores how beauty and aesthetic experiences can give a fresh start to how we think about new technologies. This work, which uses AI and machine learning, is a return to his roots where he began his career at the height of the 1980’s AI boom. Young has a master’s degree in visual studies from the MIT Media Lab, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from UCSC.