Speakers: Refik Anadol | Marshmallow Laser Feast | Analema Group
Curator Art in Flux: Olive Gingrich | Chair National Gallery X: Ali Hossaini
‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In a time, when there are nearly as many pieces of digital information as there are stars in the universe, contemporary artists explore new forms of making this vast amount of information accessible - be it through visual interpretations or new forms of interactivity. While museums around the globe including The National Gallery revisit their collections through the prism of data, contemporary artists such as Refik Anadol, Marshmallow Laser Feast and the Analema Group develop new processes for audiences to experience invisible phenomena in all new ways.
In the Analema Group’s KIMA: Colour, artworks within the National Gallery’s collection form a point of departure for a deeper understanding of colour palettes through the reading of data, Refik Anadol’s work breaks new ground in displaying visual complexity for instance in the context of ‘invisible’ neural processes such as ‘Memories’. The pioneering art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast illuminates hidden natural forces that surround us, resulting in all new experiences of the environment. Together these pioneering media artists shed new light on how media art can unearth the Invisible, and make sense of the vast complexity of data that surrounds us.
About the speakers
Refik Anadol
https://refikanadolstudio.com/
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is a media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he owns and operates Refik Anadol Studio and RAS LAB, the Studio’s research practice centered around discovering and developing trailblazing approaches to data narratives and artificial intelligence. Anadol is also a lecturer and researcher for UCLA's Department of Design Media Arts from which he obtained his Master of Fine Arts.
Anadol’s body of work addresses the challenges, and the possibilities, that ubiquitous computing has imposed on humanity, and what it means to be a human in the age of AI. He explores how the perception and experience of time and space are radically changing now that machines dominate our everyday lives. As a spatial thinker, Anadol is intrigued by the ways in which the digital age and machine intelligence allow for a new aesthetic technique to create enriched immersive environments that offer a dynamic perception of space. By proposing the possibility of “post-digital architecture,” Anadol invites his audience to imagine alternative realities by re-defining the functionalities of both interior and exterior architectural elements. Anadol tackles this by moving beyond the integration of media into built forms, instead, translating the logic of a new media technology into spatial design. Residing at the crossroads of art, science, and technology, Anadol’s site-specific three-dimensional data sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many virtual and physical forms. Entire buildings come to life, floors, walls, and ceilings disappear into infinity, breathtaking aesthetics take shape from large swaths of data, and what was once invisible to the human eye becomes visible, offering the audience a new perspective on, and narrative of their worlds. The primary thread that runs throughout Anadol’s groundbreaking visualizations of the unseen world is data: for Machine Hallucination, 113 million publicly available images of New York City were used to envision the near future of a storied city; for WDCH Dreams, 100 years of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s digital archives were tapped to inspire the visuals projected onto Frank Gehry’s iconic building; for Oakland’s Sense of Place, real-time environmental data such as wind, temperature, and humidity as well as invisible communication signals from Bluetooth, Wifi and LTE inform the work; for Berlin’s Latent Being, the visitors themselves provided real-time data for the artificial thinking process; and for Charlotte Airport’s Interconnected, real-time airport statistics such as arrivals/departures, baggage handling systems and ground shuttle transportation transform into an ever-changing suite of abstract form, color, and simulated texture. Refik Anadol Studio employs a unique team of prominent computer scientists, software developers, architects, engineers, and designers to realize Anadol’s vision. A pioneer in his field, and the first to use artificial intelligence in a public artwork, Anadol has partnered with teams at Microsoft, Google (Artist and Machine Intelligence), Panasonic, Nvidia, JPL/NASA, Intel, IBM, Siemens, Epson, MIT, UCLA, Stanford University, and UCSF, to apply the latest, cutting-edge science, research and technologies to his work. Refik Anadol and the Studio’s global projects such as Machine Hallucination, WDCH Dreams, Melting Memories, Infinity Room, and Archive Dreaming have received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, iF Gold Award, D&AD Pencil Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts Award, SEGD Global Design Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award. Anadol’s site-specific audio/visual performances have been featured at iconic landmarks, museums and festivals worldwide, such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hammer Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Artechouse, The Centre Pompidou, The Portland Building, Daejeon Museum of Art, Florence Biennale, Art Basel, OFFF Festival, International Digital Arts Biennial Montreal, Ars Electronica Festival , l’Usine | Genève, Arc De Triomf, Zollverein | SANAA’s School of Design Building, santralistanbul Contemporary Art Center, Outdoor Vision Festival, Istanbul Design Biennial, Sydney City Art, and Lichtrouten, among many others. |
Marshmallow Laser Feast
https://www.marshmallowlaserfeast.com/
Ersin Han Ersin is an artist, director and creative director of London based experiential studio Marshmallow Laser Feast. Ersin’s art practice combines a wide range of disciplines including sculpture, installation, live performance, and mixed reality.
His work illuminates the hidden natural forces that surround us, inviting participants to navigate with a sensory perception beyond their daily experience. In these spaces, the known physical world is removed to reveal networks, processes and systems that are at once sublime, underpinned by research, and fundamental to life on Earth. He has designed and directed for the likes of critically acclaimed Saatchi Gallery debut; We Live in an Ocean of Air which won British Animation Award for Best immersive, In The Eyes Of The Animal’ which was nominated for the Design of the Year by Design Museum Beazley Awards and won the Wired Innovation Award (2016). He and the team at MLF won the Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award for Innovation in Storytelling and Best VR Film at VR Arles Festival for ‘TreeHugger, Wawona’. Ersin’s work has been exhibited around the World including Lisbon Triennial, Sundance Film Festival New Frontier, Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes, Istanbul Design Biennial, London, New York, and Shanghai. As a guest lecturer Ersin also teaches at Interactive Architecture Lab at Bartlett School of Architecture. Ersin Han was born in Turkey, 1984, studied Visual Communication Design at Gazi University, Ankara. He studied for a master’s degree at Goldsmiths University, Computational Studio Arts, London. |
Analema Group
https://analemagroup.com/
Analema Group is a London based Arts collective, founded by its artistic director Evgenia Emets in 2010. The members of the collective are artists Alain Renaud, Oliver Gingrich and David Negrao. Evgenia Emets is an artist, who creates installation and participatory performance work on the intersection of visual language, sound and poetry. Dr. Alain Renaud specialises in sound installations and sound design. Dr. Oliver Gingrich is an artist and researcher, working in the realm of visual technologies and media art. David Negrao is an artist, visual developer and creative coder.
We create experiences on the intersection between art and technology. Our mission is to reflect on the nature of perception, exploring the relationships between sound, colour, light, movement and form. Our participatory art fills the gap between performers and audiences, enabling them to question their senses and the boundaries of perception. Oliver Gingrich, born in Vienna, living in London. The artist displays across a range of different media, photography, digital art, acrylic on canvas and holographic projection. With the collective Analema Group, the use of high end technology results in immersive experiences for their audiences. Oliver Gingrich studied Art and Technology at University of Applied Arts Vienna, and graduated with an MA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins. Oliver holds an Engineering Doctorate in Digital Media from the Centre for Digital Entertainment, at Bournemouth University, where is currently post-doctoral researcher at the National Centre for Computer Animation. His work centres around light refractions, neuro art, and the concentration on novel experiences of visual sound with Analema Group. Alain Renaud started his career in music production and sound engineering in the USA after graduating from university there. He moved to London, UK in 2001 working as a strategist in digital content, working with record labels and music distribution companies. In 2005 he started a PhD. (AHRC funded) in networked interactions and telepresence at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Queen’s Belfast. Upon completion of his PhD, in 2008, Alain moved to Bournemouth University in the UK with the task of developing a cutting-edge music technology curriculum and research initiative. It led to the funding of the EMERGE lab, which has now become a prominent actor in developing synergies between digital art and major industry players. Alain moved back to Switzerland in 2014, where he co-founded a digital strategy think-tank, MintLab and a startup in digital events, Artanim Interactive, which won several innovation acclaims. He is now the CTO of tech startup Future Instruments, based at EPFL in Lausanne, passionately contributing to the development of cutting-edge events at the crossroad of technology and the arts. He is also responsible for the development of a state of the art recording studio at l’Abri, a cultural center at the heart of Geneva, developing a cultural program and training initiatives for young talents. He is still involved in several initiatives internationally, including the supervision of PhD. students in digital arts in the UK as well as a member of the Analema Group, a collective of digital artists showcasing and performing interactive installations in venues such as the Roundhouse in London. Evgenia Emets started as a photographer on the cusp of the growing photography movement in 2000 in Moscow. Her work gradually unfolded from direct portraiture to complex abstract and geometric work. In 2007, she moved to London and graduated with her MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art in 2008. She presented an immersive holographic and sound installation as her graduation work. In 2010 she founded Analema Group arts collective whose ongoing project KIMA explores the art and science of visual sound. Site-specific interactive performances and installation took place throughout 2013-2017 in the UK and Europe. Evgenia has been working on integrating poetry she has been writing since she was 14 into her art practice. She creates works on the intersection of sound and visual poetry through artist books, calligraphy, performance, and objects. She actively works with languages, drawing inspiration from possible hidden relationships and common roots between distant families. She often de-constructs language exploring its underlying meaning through the power of sound. Her recent poetry works were part of Analema Group’s performances, such as ‘The Wheel’ at the Roundhouse, ‘I Am’ at Baltic Art Form and ‘The Wave’ at l’Abri Fondation. David Negrão’s professional path begins in 2003, when he participates in the visual FX for the Film Sorte Nula while he finishes the Course in Animation 2D/3D in the ETIC_ Escola de Tecnologias Inovação e Criação. One year later he attends a Cinema Course at Lusofona University that he leaves in order to start working as a freelancer in 3D animation for the areas of Film and Advertising. Then he develops his work on several animation studios as 3D generalist. In addition to 3D animation jobs, he starts gradually participating in multiple VideoMapping and interactivity projects. Currently he is also involved in the technical and creative potential of interactivity and proximities between the planes of the real and digital. Constantly inspired by nature and moved by curiosity, he is using visual coding to develop real time systems which allows linking art, nature and technology. |
About the Chair
Ali Hossaini: Co-Director of National Gallery X
http://pantar.com/
Ali Hossaini works at the cutting edge of art, technology and science. His artwork Ouroboros was acclaimed by the New York Times, which calls him “a biochemist turned philosopher turned television producer turned visual poet.” He collaborates with a wide range of talent, and his video installations and performances have been presented worldwide. He is a senior research fellow in the Department of Engineering at King's College London and co-director of National Gallery X.
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About the Curator
Olive Gingrich: Artist, Curator and Director of Art in Flux London
@oliver_mag_gingrich | www.olivergingrich.com
Oliver Gingrich, is artist, creative director at MDH Hologram (musion.com), and producer at the collective Analema Group. Holding a doctorate in Digital Media from Centre of Digital Entertainment, and a MA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, his art focuses on the concept of ‘presence’ - transformative experiences that go beyond media. As creative director, he conjures the illusion of presence through holographic projection.
Oliver Gingrich displays across a range of different media, photography, digital art, acrylic on canvas and holographic projection. With the collective Analema Group, invisible phenomena are experienced visually, sensually, sonically resulting in immersive experiences for their audiences. In his photography series, the artist explores the themes of changing identities, spatial transformation and transcendence. https://olivergingrich.com/ |