TRANSMEDIALE, 2005
Highlights from the Festival, as described by the artists themselves
Usman Haque, Sky Ear
Transmediale presents new and outstanding projects in the field of digital culture and provides reflections on the role of digital technologies in contemporary society. It is a forum of communication for artists, media workers and a broad public interested in arts of vital and still increasing international importance.
The conference deals with the BASICS of contemporary culture through topics like bio-technology, politics, and media art. The panel "BASICALLY human" targets one of the key ethical questions of today: what are the boundaries of being human at a time when we willingly accept all sorts of technical extensions and modifications of our bodies? Are the BASICS of our existence being redefined in gene-technological laboratories, and how can we hack into this bio-technological knowledge? Security technologies are infringing the freedom of the individual – how much "BASIC security" do we need?
While during the last years, the Transmediale competition had three separate categories (Image, Interaction, Software), this year we are responding to various discussions by abolishing the separation into these categories. This move forms part of a general debate about the definitions and limits of ‘electronic’, ‘digital’, or ‘media’ art, and we hope that opening up the terrain of the competition will help to re-evaluate the connection between art and media technologies.
Alice Miceli
The video-installation shows portraits of victims of the Cambodian Pol Pot regime, which were taken upon their entrance into a death camp. The photos appear as a projection against a screen of falling sand. The length of the piece corresponds exactly with the time between the arrest of the prisoners and their execution. In her installation, Alice Miceli offers an unusual visualization to an extreme political issue. Falling sand is used as a projection screen for portraits (black and white photographs) of executed Cambodian prisoners and the duration of the sand falling represents the time between the imprisonment and the execution of each prisoner, respectively. The simplicity of combining a physical and a virtual image to explore the textual qualities of video and photographic representation leaves an extremely suggestive impression.
Camille Utterback
Untitled 5 is the fifth interactive installation in the "External Measures" Series, which Utterback has been developing since 2001. The goal of these works is to create an aesthetic system which responds fluidly and intriguingly to physical movement in the exhibition space. The existence, positions, and behaviours of various parts of the projected image depend entirely on people’s presence and movement in the exhibition area. Untitled 5 creates imagery that is painterly, organic and evocative while still being completely algorithmic. Camille Utterback’s project was nominated for its sophisticated, software-driven and generative composition of painting and drawing, which remains an underexplored area in the field of new media arts. The underlying software of Untitled 5 enables the audience to become an interactive participant in the drawing and to leave an embodied impression. The project explores issues of agency negotiated between the participant and the rules of the software.
Thomas Köner
In Thomas Köner’s Suburbs of the Void, the image of an intersection surrounded by houses is seemingly devoid of life. There are no street signs – not even a billboard in sight. We are given no clues as to the whereabouts of this location. However, a few lit windows and occasional traces of light on the street, allows us to anticipate the presence of human life. For Suburbs of the Void, Köner uses 2000 photographs taken by a traffic surveillance camera. These photos were sent directly through the internet where he compiled them and then assembled them into video form. The location of this work is, in actuality, in the north of Finland close to the polar circle. The subsequent permafrost and lengthy periods of darkness identify such a location. For the artist, the permanent cold is connected with the deceleration of the image and thus, a sharpening of the viewer’s senses.
Victoria Fang
A murder has taken place and the killer must be found. In Victoria Fang’s intricate installation, all three moveable panels with LCD-Monitors can be shifted like a puzzle pieces around the room. When all three elements are correctly positioned, "memories" are triggered with which you are able to unravel the mystery. Through the position change of the panels, one’s experience with the space and layout changes in every "scene." Ultimately, the installation functions as a gigantic puzzle containing a complex narrative. The Living Room was nominated for providing a unique perspective on the spatialisation of a linked and non-linear visual narrative. Enabling the audience to solve the puzzle of a murder mystery by spatially arranging the ‘carriers’ of a pre-recorded video narrative within a confined area, the artwork alludes to the conventions of hyperlinked electronic story telling. At the same time, The Living Room crosses boundaries between interactive cinema and experiments with concepts of time and space in a "mixed reality."
5voltcore
Shockbot Corejulio is a robot-arm that is attached to a computer. Here, the robot-arm not only receives command-signals from the computer, but gets the computer to produce short-circuits inside itself. From this interaction, a series of images is produced in which the original monitor-signal is deconstructed. Inevitably, with the gradual damaging of the computer, comes defective command-signals, which, in turn, effect the operation of the Shockbot. The pictures become increasingly fragmented and finally the system breaks down completely. Shockbot Corejulio received a nomination for its interesting take on a hardware hack that challenges and plays with notions of software. Highlighting the performative aspect of software, the project leads to a short-circuiting and self-destruction of hardware, and redefines relationships between hardware / software components. Shockbot Corejulio simultaneously explores the redundancies of technology.
Michelle Teran
Michelle Teran’s performance Life: A Users Manual was nominated for its political intervention and the experimental risk it takes. Her exploration of public and private space makes a comment on the use of surveillance cameras in contemporary urban settings. The jury was convinced by the act of subverting existing surveillance tactics by transmitting the cameras footage to the public. Michelle Teran’s performance ‘Life: A Users Manual’ was nominated for its political intervention and experimental risk. The exploration of public and private space makes a comment on the use of surveillance cameras in contemporary urban settings. The jury was convinced by the act of subverting existing surveillance tactics by transmitting the cameras footage to the public.
Usman Haque
Helium filled balloons with built-in, ultra-bright LEDs form a cloud which floats around in the sky at 100m. This balloon-formation reacts to the changing electro-magnetic fields that are created by distant storms, police and traffic radio-waves or television transmittals, and which change the color and color-intensity of the balloons. Through countless variations of color, Sky Ear demonstrates the invisible topography that permanently surrounds us. The glowing cloud not only shows the extent to which natural electromagnetism penetrates our environment, but demands that the audience interact with the fields. Mobile telephones are embedded in the balloons. By telephoning into the Sky Ear the audience is able to see how the local magnetic field is changed by telephone activity; our daily interaction with electromagnetic fields is rendered visible. Haque’s Sky Ear constitutes an interesting approach to the visualization and sonification of the electromagnetic spectrum, a usually intangible force.
Niklas Roy
Pongmechanik is an electro-mechanical reproduction of the original video game classic Pong. While digital games produce increasingly realistic virtual images, this computer game is comprised of the simplest components. Here, the inner-workings of the game are exposed. At a time when the retro-aesthetics of early computer games and environments has become a prominent strand in digital art, Pongmechanik stands out as a meticulously crafted emulation of software through hardware. The project provides an interesting twist on retro-aesthetics by re-engineering the classic game Pong in a completely analogue way, where old-fashioned electronics / mechanics become a form of emulated hardware and the boundaries between software and hardware metaphorically collapse.
Joe Colley
Joe Colley’s sound composition reconciles two extremely different fields: he samples pure organic phenomena and abstract electronic sound. For the artist, the uneasy coexistence of cracking melting ice and the vibration of electronic devices symbolizes the schizophrenia that is crucial to the survival of the modern individual. This is a highly visceral sound piece that creates a sense of embodiment. The flip-flop and seamless transitions between sounds of natural processes and electronic sounds is extremely effective in communicating the artist’s desperate attempts at constructing beautiful experiences.
