Publications

Highlighting digital and new media commissions, exhibitions, research and resource developments.

On show
An artist-led research programme, Kinopixel launches this month at The Herbert, Coventry with ‘Structural/Materialist Experiments’, a screen-based installation curated by Darryl Georgiou (19 Sept-11 Jan). Subtitled ‘Exploding the image’, the programme provides a timely review of experimental moving image as it migrates from film and video to digital, making links between film avant-gardes, new media and contemporary art practice. It also marks the 30th anniversary of pioneering ‘Video Art 78’ presented in the same venue, that showcased work by artists including Bill Viola. Kinopixel encompasses newly-commissioned work, screenings, talks and exhibitions and is supported by Coventry University’s School of Art and Design. Contributors to the programme include Nicky Hamlyn, Elizabeth McAlpine, Peter Tscherkassy, George Saxon, Lis Rhodes, Guy Sherwin, Ernie Gehr, Paul Rooney, Annabel Nicolson, John Holden, Gill Eatherley, Eivind Johansen, Darryl Georgiou and Nicky Hamlyn. Look out for the 31 December deadline for an open submission call for ‘Recycling the moving image Reel #2: Fragments/Out-takes’ curated by George Saxon and Lucy Reynolds (LUX).

The first UK exhibition of Japanese media artist Masaki Fujihata’s acclaimed interactive work, ‘The Conquest of Imperfection’, at Cornerhouse until 19 October, features eight installations created since 1996. All have a sense of playfulness, requiring visitors to actively engage, but at the same time probing fundamental questions of perception and awareness. Unformed Symbols: Another Side, a new work specially for this exhibition follows from Unformed Symbols, created in 2006, a work that recreates a card game using real playing cards and animated projected images. Fujihata has created pioneering work in all fields of digital media, including computer graphics, interactivity, the Internet, location based and distributed computing, nano technology, data mining, inhabited information spaces and GPS.

‘Subterranean Architecture. Stepwells in Western India’ opens at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre on 6 September as the first stop in a tour. With support from the Arts Council of Wales, Wales Arts International and University of Wales Institute, artist Richard Cox spent time in 2007 and 2008 travelling in Western India, driving through the Thar Desert and Northern Gujarat, using digital photography to document 150 stepwells, many now derelict and unknown, as they fell into disuse in the 19th century, when replaced by water pumps. Built in India in desert regions since 800AD, groundwater and rainwater would fill the stepwells during the Monsoon and as the dry season progressed, water levels would drop. Well designs were governed by factors including regions or time in which they were built, geology of locations, water table levels, patronage and religious significance.

Symposia
South Hill Park Digital Media Centre’s distinctive programme of sound art, animation and hybrid digital/traditional printmaking aims to support artists’ development. In spaces across the Georgian mansion, the second Sound:Space Sound Art Symposium in November presents work by innovative kinetic sculptor Max Eastley. Alongside, a programme of curated sound works, speakers and performances includes Ray Lee, Peter Cusack and Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen. Autumn’s new artist development weekends include investigation of installation practice with Eastley, visit from stellar circuit-bender Stu Smith from Bathysphere on the underground world of hardware hacking and printmaker Janet Curley Cannon’s exploration of use of digital transfers to print on unconventional surfaces.

Now in its 10th year, Trampoline curates festivals, exhibitions, platform events, conferences, workshops and artists’ residencies in Nottingham and Berlin. Founders of the Radiator Festival for New Technology Art in 2000, the fourth event this autumn includes an international symposium. Recent Trampoline projects include Do Billboards Dream of Electric Screens?, First Play Berlin and The Status Project. In development is an internationally touring exhibition ‘Performing Space’ that explores transformed conditions of a networked, mediated, ‘hybrid’ environment.

Art live
Mind Body Brain that looks into new ways to perform live with a computer, and at developing new tools and interfaces for music, dance and live art is due to be presented at Goldsmiths in January. MFA Computational Studio Arts student Ryan Jordan will perform with sensors attached to his body that respond to physical movements and control sound and lights, Disinformation is researching EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), Mick Grierson’s performance with a brain-computer interface will interpret his brain waves into musical notes and John Bowers’ piece utlises homemade electronic instruments. The Goldsmith’s Thursday Club supports interdisciplinary research into digital arts, with all events free and open for all to attend and submit papers – see www.thethursdayclub.net for more information,

Presented across sites in Hastings, A Journey Through Installation demonstrates the pioneering approach by Project Art Works to art, collaboration and disability through works and installations that include painting, drawing, printmaking, animation and film. It reveals how art and new media can be used to research individual experience, understanding and communication and seeks to create unparalleled opportunities for children and adults who have complex needs to engage with the world and express themselves. Facilitating an experimental approach to new media through projects and workshops, Project Art Works employs digital media in a way that ‘enlarges’ the sound, colour and sensory activity in workshop environments, to give people who have the most profound cognitive and perceptual impairments greater and more meaningful access to stimuli, creative media and experience. See the project at Stables Theatre Gallery 9 Sept-11 Oct, Arch Studios, (workshop observation) 9/10 Sept, Arch 2 Installation 2, 3, 9,10, 16, 17 Sept, Arches 2 and 3 open days 19/20 Sept.

Running annually since 2006 at London Science Museum’s Dana Centre the Takeaway Festival of Do It Yourself Media enables artists or designers to make imaginative leaps from familiar domains to new territories. The 2008 event held in May provided a live video link question and answer session with artists Mark Hanson and Ben Rubin – creators of the Listening Post – that is now on permanent exhibition at the museum. A 28 November deadline call – see p?? – for work using either RFID or that tries to redefine the concept of a musical instrument, will award funds to help selected artists realise projects for 2009’s festival.

On tour to venues including ICA, FACT and De la Warr Pavilion during 2008/09 is Luke Jerram’s The Dream Director, commissioned by Watershed through the Clark Bursary. During six months, the artist worked with sleep psychologist Chris Alford at University of West of England on an immersive installation that merges art, science and digital media. Members of the public were invited to sleep overnight in a gallery in a specially-designed ‘pod’ wearing an eye-mask that detected rapid eye movement, this triggering sounds played into the pod’s speakers, thus affecting the nature and content of dreaming. The project not only explored boundaries of participants’ conscious and subconscious minds, prompting questions about ethics and possibilities for creating art in dream space but also offered a new tool for sleep science and clinical applications, raising questions on boundaries between science and art.

Research and development
Access to resources and expertise are crucial, not only for digitally adept practitioners, but also for those who are the next generation. A significant Southern England agency for media and interdisciplinary arts, SCAN will shortly relocate to Bournemouth University’s Media School. Presently hosted at ArtSway where it has worked collaboratively on initiatives such as Igloo’s Summerbranch for the 2007 Venice Biennale and the ongoing Multichannel, screenings programme, SCAN brings to the school its reputation for groundbreaking development of tools and models of working and delivery of challenging concepts and projects. SCAN Director Helen Sloan recognises that the organisation’s profile for delivering public outcomes for practice-led research will be complemented by the institution’s 5* research environment. SCAN’s 5th anniversary will be marked by this relocation and a relaunch in Spring 2009.

Stanthers Ink the newly-founded independent DVD label for emerging moving image and sound animators and artists, is inspired by independent record label ‘Saturn’, founded by DIY polymath Sun Ra. Embracing independent practice, production and dissemination, S_INK ‘s work will span ‘all things animation‘. Quarterly hand-produced DVDs will be produced alongside performances, exhibitions and presentations. The official launch on 30 September is marked with release of the DVD Easton Esoteric’s featuring an anthology of neurological and prose animations on the theme of transcending binary systems by NCCA and RCA graduate Tajinder Dhami.

Compiled and edited by Susan Jones

www.kinopixel.net
www.cornerhouse.org/maskaifujihata
www.richard-cox.co.uk
www.sound-space.info
www.digitalmediacentre.org
www.southhillpark.org.uk
www.trampoline-berlin.de
www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/computing/computational-studio-arts/projects.php
www.projectartworks.org
www.takeawayfestival.com
www.dshed.net/clarkbursary
www.lukejerram.com
www.scansite.org
www.myspace.com/tajinderdhami

Susan Jones

Susan Jones is the Director and Publisher, a-n The Artists Information Company.

First published: a-n Magazine September 2008