Five arthropod robots make organic but twitchy movements: an unexpected behavior, since it is realized by machines which, supposedly, should be merely functional. This work aims to evoke the spectator’s empathy for the robotic entities, which in fact are more than a handful of metallic structures.
Bill Vorn has been dedicated to robotic art since 1992. A professor at Concordia University, Canada, where he teaches electronic art, he is in charge of the research laboratory for robotic art creation (Alab) at Hexagram Institute, also in Canada.
Several devices communicate with each other by means of ultrasonic waves. They reach vibrations which act on the threshold of human hearing, but that can be seen on a large screen thanks to a data visualization system.
An evolutionary installation of artificial life, which forms an ecosystem. The agents are cellular automata which interact with each other and with the environment.
Learn more about autonomy and interactivity, two central concepts to the creators of art technology.
Jon McCormack
An Australian artist. He is a senior professor of Computer Science and co-director of the Centre for Electronic Media Art of the University of Monash in Melbourne.
by Rejane Cantoni and Daniela Kutschat (Brazil, 2004)
An immersive installation designed to explore representations of a 4D hypercube, known by geometers as a “tesseract”. An automated system inside a cube shaped room, triggers synchronized flashes of light, which stimulate the developments of this strange geometrical object.
Technical support: Estação da Luz
Rejane Cantoni has a PhD and a Master’s Degree in communication and semiotics from the Catholic Pontific University in Sao Paulo, PUC/SP, as well as a Master’s Degree in higher studies of information systems with a major in infographic visualization and communication from Geneva University, Switzerland. She is currently a professor on the technology and digital media course at PUC/SP.
Daniela Kutschat has been investigating electronic media and communication technologies in the context of art since 1986. She currently develops multi-modality platforms that integrate body, light, sound and image in installations, immersive environments and interactive systems. She is a resident artist at the Interactive Arts Research Center at Plymouth University, CAiiA-Star, England, where she developed the interactive system Pas-de-Trois (1998).
by Iain Mott, Experimenta Media Arts (Australia, 2001)
“Close developed in response to the death of a friend in 1998 and on viewing his body. I was, somewhat inevitably, powerfully struck by his absence – he was clearly elsewhere. I decided to produce a piece that would facilitate a meditation on death using conflicting phenomena associated with two methods of representation: spatial audio and the moving image.
Close is a multi-screen video projection installation that blurs the separation between viewer and subject by means of 3-dimensional sound. The viewer wears headphones and hears sound from the perspective of the subject. Close portrays a haircut as a kind of death. The hairdresser, in a gradual erasure of the subjects features, removes hair and eyebrows with scissors and razors. The viewer inhabits the body of the subject as if watching his or her own disappearance. The shared ritualistic experience explores territories of death and loss.” Iain Mott, artist.
by Elizabeth Vander Zaag, Banff New Media Institute (Bnmi) (Canada, 1999-2000)
Talk Nice analyses declarative sentences in which the pitch rises at the end of a statement as an upism (pitch going up at end of sentence). Upism, amplitude, word rate and pause detection as well as gender define the speaker’s relationship to power. The game play is structured through cooperation and inclusion. The participant is the performer, the experience is one on one although others may lurk and look.
The installation makes us aware of inflections and social posturing that we are unaware of in day-to-day communications. As the viewer/user, you begin a conversation with two videotaped young women who are insistent on using the compelling power of upism. Through interaction, you gradually learn to master the software and to encourage it to like you by liltingly using upisms.
by Marnix de Nijs and Edwin van der Heide, V2_Organisation (Nethelands, 2000-2001)
Spatial Sounds (100dB at 100km/h) is an interactive audio installation by Marnix de Nijs and Edwin van der Heide. In this engine-powered installation, a speaker is mounted onto a rotating arm that is several meters long. Like a watchdog, the machine scans the surrounding space for visitors. Closer investigation would be tempting fate, with the rotating arm swinging so powerfully round. You hear the impressive sound of the mighty motor revving up, turning faster and faster. You can feel the displacement of air as the speaker whizzes past you, and you had better step back, out of reach. The machine slows down and, when the shock wears off, you start exploring the space, with your movements manipulating the sound it produces. Just don’t get too close! Spatial Sounds (100dB at 100km/h) builds up a physically tangible relationship with the visitor, since it is the game of attracting and repelling between machine and visitor that determines its sound and movement.
