[spectre] Subtle Technologies Festival & Digicult present:
"Phenomena: a journey around audiovisual art-science"
Redazione Digicult
redazione at digicult.it
Tue May 24 16:06:54 CEST 2011
Subtle Technologies Festival 2011 | May 28 - June 5, 2011 & Digicult
present:
PHENOMENA:
A JOURNEY AROUND AUDIOVISUAL ART-SCIENCE
Curated by Marco Mancuso and Claudia D'Alonzo for Digicult
http://www.subtletechnologies.com/festival/film
http://www.iictoronto.esteri.it/IIC_Toronto/webform/
http://www.digicult.it/en/2011/SubtleTechnologiesPhenomena.asp
For official images and videos descriptions, please contact:
press at digicult.it
-----
Innis Town Hall, Toronto
June 02-03, 2011
Screenings:
"Hidden Worlds" - curated by Marco Mancuso for Digicult
"When the eye flickers (Quando l'occhio trema)" - curated by Claudia D'Alonzo
(Univeristy of Udine, Digicult) & Mario Gorni (archivio DOCVA)
Lecture:
"A Myriad of vibrant phenomena. The hidden worlds of audiovisual
art-science" - lead by Marco Mancuso for Digicult
-----
Digicult has been invited by Subtle Technologies festival in Toronto to
present 2 Videoscreenings: "Hidden Worlds" curated by Marco Mancuso and
"When the Eye Flickers" (Quando l'Occhio Trema) curated by Claudia D'Alonzo
(Univeristy of Udine, Digicult) e Mario Gorni (archivio DOCVA) .
"Hidden Worlds" is another chapter of Marco Mancuso's research on
audiovisual art-science which started from Bruce Sterling's Fabrica
Workshop, continued with the lecture taken at Museo della Scienza in Naples
in 2009 and fixed with the curatorship at Sincronie Festival 2009 and
invitation at Cinema & Science convention organized by University Roma 3.
"When the Eye Flickers" (Quando l'Occhio Trema) is a Claudia D'Alonzo's
critical research on reconstruction of the historical and methodological
path of the use of the Flickering technique, togher with Mario Gorni and
Docva Archive (Milan)
The videoscreening "Hidden Worlds" was enriched by a critical essay &
lecture, led by Marco Mancuso, entitled "A Myriad of Vibrant Phenomena: the
hidden worlds of audiovisual art-science"
Subtle Technologies is a gathering of artists, scientists, technologists,
engineers and the general public. The festival share cross-disciplinary
ideas, explore new technologies, showcase creativity and incubate the next
generation of practitioners at the intersection of art, science and
technology.
2011 marks the 14th year of festival and organization. The audience and
visibility have steadily grown since 1997. The festival is now well-known in
Toronto and internationally as a unique venue for bringing together cutting
edge science and art. Our events are attended by intellectually curious
people from all parts of society-especially those with an interest in art,
technology, science, engineering, architecture or design.
The annual June Festival includes a symposium (3 days of interdisciplinary
presentations, demos, lightning talks and panel discussions), performances,
exhibitions and films, speed networking and more. Starting in 2010-2011, the
festival began a series of year-round events, partnering with many community
groups to run workshops, literary events, documentary screenings and other
events throughout the year-all focused on bringing together art, science and
technology.
-----
"HIDDEN WORLDS"
Screening curated by Marco Mancuso for Digicult: Short Version
The screening "Hidden Worlds" is a critical reflection upon the existing
connection between audiovisual art, energy and science on the borders of
cinema, video and digital.
The "Hidden Worlds" exhibition celebrates one of the most fascinating yet
obscure territories of artistic audiovisual contemporary research: the
relation between art and science. The video screening produces works that
induce into a critical reflection on the existing relation between
audiovisual contemporary artistic research (as regards to cinema, video and
digital experiences) and applied sciences.
This project, dealing with different artistic examples which investigate new
expressive forms for the representation of the sound-image relation,
deliberately avoids focusing on the existing common aesthetics among them,
as well as on a possible expressive language. It rather suggests an overview
on specific systems for sensorial perception, and emotional mechanisms of
"saturation", achieved through the use of hybrid techniques, that today like
never before expand the tradition of analog experimental cinema and digital
audiovisuals.
What it is today recognized as "immersive art-science" is a form of creative
expression meant to rise above the notion of art as abstract representation,
in behalf of a multi-sensorial experience. The purpose here is to create
aesthetical fascinating objects and also to invite the public to go beyond
ordinary perception's border. Immersivity awakens a synesthetic awareness
both in the mental and in the physic space. A myriad of vibrant phenomena,
usually beyond the observer's reach, are instead made reachable through an
accurate psychophysical conditioning.
This video screening takes the spectators to wonderful "hidden worlds",
illustrated by artists and scientists who more and more often collaborate
and share experiences with one another on the research of new expressive
potentialities within specific mathematical processes and physical, optical,
chemical and electro-magnetic phenomena.
By watching the audiovisual representation of the existing energetic and
electromagnetic phenomena on the Sun's surface and of current interferences
generated from interaction of electromagnetic fields between the Sun and
Earth, as possible instrument of aestheticization of the space phenomena by
the Semiconductor duo (in works such as "Black Rain"), the passage to the
audiovisual representation of chemical-physical-optical reactions of the
Portable Palace duo (Evelina Domnitch & Dmitri Gelfand) is extraordinary
short indeed. In their first work present in this exhibition, ("Camera
Lucida") they study the chemical-physical phenomena of "sonoluminescence",
while in their second one ("10000 Peackcock Feathers in Foaming Acid") they
analyze the potentialities of optical phenomena generated by investigating
the laser light within the nanometric structures of foams. Moreover, the
first work by Thorsten Fliesch present in the exhibition ("Energie!") shows
the scorches on photographic paper produced by an high potential energy flow
of an electron beam contained in a cathode ray tube.
The number is an ever present concept, being the fundamental element of
every mathematical and algebraic formula which involves not only a single
energy phenomenon present in nature, but also a series of
disturbing/superimposition phenomena, such as interferences, beats,
accumulations, harmonies and other optical event, like Moirè's (optical
illusion created by geometrical sequences of interference phenomena), as
shown by the purely glitch and software work by Carsten Nicolai ("Spray")
The number, in its highest abstraction of key element for a fourth dimension
representation , is still an important part of Thorsten Fleisch's video
("Gestalt"), a sort of recognition of the quaternion worlds
(four-dimensional fractals) visualized in a three dimensional space through
appropriate software. Yet maybe John Campbell's masterpiece ("LI: The
Patterns of Nature") is the work that mostly evidences the geometric
structures spontaneously present in Nature, through a kind of magical and
hypnotic audiovisual document, perfect sample of a deep critical conviction:
contemporary audiovisual art, today more than in the past, has the
technological instruments and the ethical duty to confront itself with the
empirical world and the "natural" technologies within it. Technologies that
should be collected, observed and manipulated by man, who has already given
proof of his skill with light, sound, image and space.
SCREENING:
- Semiconductor
Black Rain (2009, GB)
col., sound, 3'02'', HD Format: 16:9 widescreen
- Evelina Domnitch & Dmitri Gelfand
Camera Lucida: Sonochemical Observatory (2006 - Rus, Bel)
col., sound, 8'57''
-Thorsten Fleisch
Energie! (2007, Ger)
col., sound, 5'18''
- John N. Campbell
Li: The Patterns of Nature (2007 - Usa)
col., sound 9'06'', original format: 16mm
- Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand
10000 Peackcock Feathers in Foaming Acid (2009 Rus, Bel)
col., sound, 2'52''
- Alva Noto
Spray (2006, Ger)
col., sound, 8'
- Thorsten Fleisch
Gestalt (2003, Ger)
col., sound, 5'20''
-----
"WHEN THE EYE FLICKERS (QUANDO L'OCCHIO TREMA)"
Screening curated by Claudia D'Alonzo for Digicult and Mario Gorni for Docva
Inspired by a 1989 film by Paolo Gioli with the same name, this screening
reconstructs the historical and methodological path of the use of the
Flickering technique, using a selection of works from the DOCVA and INVIDEO
archives, as well as from works of a number of authors connected to the
Digicult international network.
The "flicker" is a technique applied to a number of art forms, from the
experimental cinema on analog film, light installations and environments, as
well as video analog and digital audiovisual. This technique is based on a
specific perceptive phenomenon. Our perception of moving images normally
happens with a 24 frames per second frequency.
If we decrease this frequency to between 6 to 18 frames per second, we
create a visual blinking leading to a direct stimulation of the optic nerve
and, thus, to a proto-vision where the visual rhythm becomes directly
synchronized with our cerebral waves.
The flicker belongs to what Edmund Husserl defines as perceptive ambiguity,
for its potentials to go beyond and offer a chance to overcome the habitual
conventions that govern our knowledge of the real. This may be achieved
through destabilizing-in some cases violently, or traumatically-perceptive
common, almost addicted, habits.
Artists experiment with flickering using a phenomenological approach,
through the anomalous stimulation of our perceptive apparatus, as well as
through the structural analysis of the codes that compose the moving image.
Thanks to the collaboration with the Archive of DOCVA and Digicult, "When
the Eye Flickers (Quando l'occhio trema)" is meant also as a moment of
research, a way to conceive the archival material as a dynamic instrument
through which to establish relations and exchanges, a point of departure to
establish comparisons between the historical experiences of the audiovisual
experimentation and the most contemporary developments.
SCREENING:
- Claudio Ambrosini
Light solfeggio (Italia, 1977)
2'17'', b/w, Courtesy Archivio DOCVA
- Paolo Gioli
Quando l'occhio trema (Italia, 1989)
12', b/w, Courtesy Paolo Gioli
- Kurt Hentschläger/Ulf Langheinrich (Granular Synthesis)
Form ( Austria, 2000)
3', col., Courtesy Granular Synthesis
- Thorsten Fleisch
Superbitmapping (Germania, 2000)
2' 3'', col., Courtesy Thorsten Fleisch
- Graw & Bockler
Because (Germania, 2002)
3'47", col., Courtesy Archivio, DOCVA
- Scott Arford
Untitled for television (USA, 2003)
5' 57'', col., Courtesy Scott Arford
- Alessandrà Arnò
Stars (Italia, 2003)
4', b/n, Courtesy Archivio DOCVA
- Otolab
Vagina cosmica (Italia, 2009)
video: xo00, audio: _dies, , 4' 50'', col., Courtesy of Otolab
-----
"A MYRYAD OF VIBRANT PHENOMENA.
THE HIDDEN WORLDS OF AUDIOVISUAL ART-SCIENCE
Lecture by Marco Mancuso for Digicult
Between 1899 and 1904 the german philosopher and biologist Ernst Haeckel
published a book of lithographic and autotype prints entitled Kunstformen
der Natur (Art Forms of Nature), one of his best known works and a symbol of
his zoological research and philosophy, centered on the observation of
marine micro-organisms as well of various natural species and animals. The
complete volume, consisting of over 100 lithographs, each accompanied by a
short descriptive text, obtained a great success even among the
non-specialist public and among some Art Nouveau artists, committed to find
new models to be used in the nascent industrial design and in architecture.
>From the first experiences on the field by Haeckel to theories of fractals
and morphogenesis, dreams of genetic algorythms, studies on quaternions,
perceptions of Moirè's and optical effects, computational periodics
achievements, recordings of electromagnetics phenomena, chemical-physical
sponteneous reactions, cymatics observations on dynamics of sound waves and
vibrations, it's clear that Mother Nature is characterized at the root by a
matrix of numbers and mathematical expressions involving a series of
physical, optical, chemical-physical, electromagnetic and nanometric
phenomena influencing its forms, species, colours, sounds and structures.
If science is considered an organic complex of knowledge obtained through a
methodical procedure, capable of providing a precise description of the real
aspect of things and the laws by which the phenomena happen, and if the
rules governing such process are generally called "scientific method", then
the experimental observation of a natural event, the formulation of a
general hypothesis about such event and the possibility of checking the
hypothesis through subsequent observations become fundamental elements in
modern scientific research.
What it is today recognized as "immersive art-science" is a form of creative
expression meant to rise above the notion of art as abstract representation,
in behalf of a multi-sensorial experience. The purpose of the this lecture
which enrich and complete the "Hidden Worlds" screening, is to critically
map those artists acting with a "discovery approach", observing and
recording, sharing experiences and ideas with scientists and science
communities, working without the use of cinematographic or video or digital
tecniques but obtaining the fluxus of sound and images only by natural and
spontaneous scientific phenomena (physical, optical, chemical, mathemical
and electro-magnetical). Hidden Worlds wants to create fascinating objects
and also to invite the public to go beyond ordinary perception's border.
Immersivity awakens a synesthetic awareness, both in the mental and in the
physical space. A myriad of vibrant phenomena, usually beyond the observer's
reach, are instead made reachable through an accurate psychophysical
conditioning.
VIDEO LECTURE
- Hans Jenny Cymatics Soundscapes (1967, Switzerland)
- Mary Ellen Bute Abstronic (Usa, 1954)
- John Whitney Permutations (USA, 1971)
- Semiconductor Magnetic Movies (USA, 2007)
-----
THE CURATORS
Claudia D'Alonzo: Graduated in Contemporary Art History, Claudia PhD student
in Audiovisual Studies at the University of Udine (Italy). For several
years, she has been interested in new media art, particularly in the
audiovisual interactions allowed by electronic and digital technologies.
Within the Digicult network she takes care of press office activities and
curatorial projects. She belongs to the management committee of Digimag
magazine, with which she collaborates also as writer in the audiovisual
experimental cinema section. She has published catalogues and articles for
contemporary art magazines, among which "Exibart" and "Luxfluflux Prototype.
She collaborated with Galleria Sala1, in Rome, MLAC, Museo Laboratorio di
Arte Contemporanea, in Rome, DOCVA Centro di Documentazione per le Arti
Visive, in Milan. She has been curator for national and international
presentations, screenings and exhibitions.
Marco Mancuso: Marco Mancuso is a new media art critic, curator, editor and
teacher, expert of the impact of digital technologies on art, design,
culture and contemporary society. Founder and Director at Digicult project
and Digimag magazine, Marco Mancuso focuses his researches on the connection
between sound, light, image & space, with an historical/theoretical point of
view, among a cross-disciplinary territory crossing art, cinema, music,
design, architecture & science. With the art-agency Digimade he is working
for international art festivals, galleries, cultural and media centers as
guest curator and media partner, organizing exhibitions and cross media
events, workshops, meetings, performance and screenings and promoting, among
others, Italian live media & live cinema artists. As Digicult director,
Marco Mancuso has been also expertising and skilling in the last years on
networking strategies, online marketing & comunication developments and web
2.0 editing & journalistic activities. His interviews and critical texts can
be read on Digimag archive, while his essays were published in festival and
exhibition catalogues, and lectures and presentations he joined, both
nationally and internationally.Marco Mancuso regularly teaches "Multimedia
Art Languages" at NABA-New Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and "Audiovisual
Design" at IED-European Institute of Design in Milan. He is also invited as
guest lecturer and teacher of "New Media Art, Design & Culture" to seminars
and workshops at academies and labs in Italy and Europe (like
Transmedia-Brussels, Politecnico-Milan, Vasa Project.). Marco Mancuso is
member of international art-prices juries, like Celeste Prize, Kernel
Festival and In/Out Festival - http://www.marcomancuso.net/
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