looking outwards 10

http://www.tinafrank.net/webdesign/wirel/

For this looking outwards I decided to look into Tina Frank. Her body of work is largely data visualization projects, but for this looking outwards I will specifically talk about her online interactive data visualization piece called “The Changing Religious Landscape of Vienna”. This piece was sponsored by WIREL and made in 2013 as a collaboration with Ramon Bauer. Frank designed all the graphics and such for this project. The data was gathered on looking at religious diversity in Vienna and its changes over the years. The project also attempts to tackle age diversity, sex diversity, and more and combine them to properly examine how certain religious populations may be changing. The design interface is very user friendly, all the data can shift when moving your mouse around the interactive piece. The interface is also very easy to understand, and although based on Vienna–– this same technique could be applied with many other data sets and still be applicable. Tina Frank’s other work is graphic design and data viz, as well as some audiovisual art videos.

Han Yu Looking Outwards 10

Tega Brain is an Australian critical new media artist and provocateur as well as an environmental engineer. She is famous for creatively using information systems to present data, taking the form of online interventions and experimental infrastructures. Brain is able to explore the strengths of multiple platforms and utilize them in eccentric engineering which intersects art, engineering and ecology. She is currently an assistant professor teaching at Integrated Digital Media department of New York University. Her works are exhibited in a number of museums around the world. One of her works that I found most interesting is called Smell Dating, which is the world’s first smell based dating service that matches people based on feedback of smelling each other’s odor.

Smell Dating exhibition in Shanghai, China.

According to a number of research, it shows that smell is the most evocative experience by human and can be used to find links to a number of information such as age, gender and even predisposition to illness. Brain’s Smell Dating service invites people to trust their olfactory intuition and choose the other halves based on their smell signatures. In order to participate the service, people will need to exchange their worn smelly shirts which are designed by the smell dating team. They will receive random shirts by other participants and if both participants mutually liked the smell of each other, they will exchange phone numbers and ready to move on to the next stage of their relationships. I like how Brain can realize such a vague scientific connection between scent and romantic attractions into a project that is very practical and quantifiable.

Participants of Smell Dating.

Xindi Lyu-Looking Outwards-10

Female Austrian artist Lia’s practice includes multiple medias, including videos, performance, software, sculpture, projections and digital applications. Her works combine traditional painting and drawing methods with the aesthetics of digital images. Since she started to produce her art works from 1995, she has been recognized a pioneer at software and net art. She uses code as her primary material of producing art works, which translates her concepts into a written structure that becomes a machine from which visual messages are generated real-time. This particular process could also be considered as a conversation between her as an artist and the “machine”.

Above is one of her projects “floralis digitalis”. The digital “flowers” are generated randomly and always looked different. This art piece not only consists of the dynamic nature of digital art but also has an elegance and truthfulness within. The way the flowers are generated by thin lines creates a sense of transparency and the color choices fit and communicated the theme of the project very well. As we watch LIA’s flowers sprouting and growing, we discover that beyond their beauty, sweetness, an their apparent banality, and their feminine nature.

Yoo Jin Shin-LookingOutwards-10

Shin’m 2.0

Shin’m 2.0 (2011) is an interactive installation and performance by media artist Eunsu Kang, in collaboration with software engineer Donald Craig and dancer and choreographer, Diana Garcia-Snyder. The project portrays “how we communicate with the space, how we connect into it, and how we and the space reshape each other.” The space is filled with nebula bubbles constantly circulating through a black hole in the center. Both light and sound follow the participant’s movements using the GLUT application with C++ along with kinetic sensors.

The still image of the Shin’m 2.0 was enough to catch my attention. It’s simply stunning and looks like something out of a movie. This effect is emphasized in the video of the installation— it seriously looks like CG. I think it’s admirable that Kang started the Shin’m project back in 2008 and has repeatedly made adjustments and improved on her design to get to this point.

Kang received her BFA and MFA at Ewha Womans University in South Korea, MA in Media Arts and Technology from UC Santa Barbara, and a PHD in Digital Arts and Experimental Media from University of Washington. She currently works as a associate professor of art at University of Akron and regularly holds exhibitions of her various media designs.

Xiaoying Meng Looking Outwards 10

I’m looking at Mary Franck’s work for this Looking Outwards. Mary Franck is a female artist who works on real-time media and computational design. She studied BA Studio Art: Conceptual and Information Art at San Francisco State University and MDesR: Emerging Systems Technology and Media at SCI-Arc. She now teaches workshops and taught Emerging Technology Studio at Standford University in 2016.

I’m very interested in this particular project of hers, called Diffuse Objects. This project explores digital ornamentation and showcases light and translucence of material. I think the contrast between glass and wood really makes this project interesting. In a gif on her website, we can see light moving through the glass balls, reflecting light waves. Digital exploration creates endless possibilities for ornamentations. The organic form of the wood makes it looks like the piece is growing out of the panel.

Dani Delgado – Looking Outwards – 10

A screenshot of the Kontinuum experience

The project I chose this week is called Kontinumm – an “immersive 3-floor underground interactive multimedia installation” which incorporates lights, projections, and sensors to create a unique experience for the visitor. It was created in 2017 for the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation. I am in awe of this project, as it required so much planning, mapping, wiring, and coding that I cannot begin to comprehend how they created such an experience.

Yael Braha was the multimedia director for this project, which meant she directed content, set design, UI and UX, interactivity, lighting, and sounds (so, essentially, she dictated the who experience). Yael studied Graphic Design in the European Institute of Design in Rome and later earned a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema at San Francisco State University. She was a professor at multiple universities before becoming the Multimedia Director of Moment Factory. Her work combines the fields of art, science, technology, and entertainment in order to create immersive experiences. I admire her ability to create complex systems of interactions to create a truly fabricated environment.

^ A video about the exhibit.

Looking Outwards-10

For this week’s Looking Outwards entry, I wanted to explore the work of Janet Echelman, who explores expression in art through “experimental sculpture at the scale of buildings.” Echelman’s work began its roots during her time at the fishing village Mahabalipuram, where she was waiting for some of her paints to arrive for an exhibition. Inspired by the sculpting culture in the village and the fishermen’s nets, Echelman now installs netted sculptures at the scale of buildings, that seek to express/capture both light and wind.

The image above exhibits one of Echelman’s projects in Shanghai,China. The sculpture is titles “1.26” and seeks to explore the idea of “interconnectedness of opposites.” The work exhibits the tension between what is hard and soft, what can be changed and what cannot be touched.

(The total sculpture spans 80ft long x60ft wide x30ft in depth)

The data used to create such structure uses NASA and NOAA data from the 2010 Chilean earthquake and tsunami. The reason the piece is titled “1.26” is because the earthquake’s shake actually sped the earth’s rotation, shortening the time of the day by 1.26 micro-seconds.

As seen in the video below, the way the data was implemented into the form of the sculpture stems from the points of tension and trends in the data. These correlations in data were then transcribed into programmed lights and the interweaving of polyethylene (UHMWPE) fiber.

What I particularly like about this work is how it expressed such complicated data in a clear, visual form that also ties in the emotional aspect/ reaction to such an event that is lost in numbers.

More information at:

1.26 Shanghai, China, 2017

Looking Outwards 10 – Sara Frankel

https://carolinerecord.com/Light-Clock/
Caption: Project, Light Clock, captures the moment every 5 minutes, 24/7 for the entire year.

The project I chose was the Light Clock by Caroline Record that is actually set up right down the street outside at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The clock conveys the passing of time through a continuously swooping solitary hand, which makes a rotation every 5 minutes and each time it gets to the top, the clock captures a 360º image of the museum plaza. Taking a panorama photo of the entrance facing Forbes Ave, it documents the images inside , resulting in hundreds of thousands of images. What I love about this project is that it literally stops life to look around and “realize” whats going on. Life feels like its flying by and sometimes you need to be reminded to stop and look around you to analyze what’s going on in the moment. Caroline Record is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelors in Art and a Masters in Science. She works at The Innovation Studio which specializes in crafting custom digital experiences for the four Carnegie Museums (The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Carnegie Science Center ). She involved in every detail of creating immersive interactive experiences (Taken from her Linkdin profile*).

*https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-record-4419348a/

Yiran Xuan – Looking Outward 10

I greatly admire Robin Hunicke’s work in the video game industry, especially in two very unique and memorable games, Boom Blox and Journey, the latter of which has won multiple awards for its visuals and interactions. Robin started in the industry at Electronic Arts, working on the Sims, before joining thatgamecompany as a producer. She recently started her own company, Funomena, to create VR and art games, such as Wattam in collaboration with the creator of Katamari Damacy.

Journey is a very emotional game, despite having no dialogue, and this is due to the very deliberate mechanics and environmental design choices that Robin had done research upon; players can be led to feel a certain way simply by an interaction. Robin also does research into dynamic difficulty adjustment, which is when a game procedurally evaluates player interactions and gameplay to adjust its difficulty.

http://danm.ucsc.edu/faculty/robin-hunicke

Sarah Yae – Looking Outward 10 – Section B

http://www.katherinebennett.net/art/sleeping_thoughts.html

Katherine Bennett is a media artist, who uses programming and physical computing to present interactive installations. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from The School of Art Institute of Chicago and has won several grants. Her most recent exhibition is called “The Noise of the Heartbeat or Whatever the Hell”(2017) in New York, NY.

Her work, Sleeping Thoughts (2011) is an installation where she put up lights hanging from the ceiling at different lengths. Audience can walk around this room and immerse themselves into a 3-D constellation, almost. I admire this project because it gives me peace and relaxation. I like how pretty and simple it looks as well. It amazes me how much you can do with a room, to create such different atmosphere and vibes.