Experimenta

Experimenta Play ++ is an exhibition of recent Australian media artworks that respond to the gallery visitor through playful and innovative interfaces involving touch, movement, sound, shadow, and pressure.

The five exemplary recent Australian media artworks are curated around the theme of “Ludic” or playful interfaces. They showcase a number of ingenious ways that the artists involve the gallery visitor in the artwork. Touch, movement, sound, shadow, and pressure are used in innovative ways to trigger responses in the works, to generate narrative within fictional worlds and create sonic compositions.

VENUE
Venue: Sculpture Square (Chapel Gallery), Singapore
Dates: 25 July – 2 August 2008
Sculpture Square Ltd
155 Middle Road, Singapore
Open Daily 12pm - 8pm
Admission is free.

ASSOCIATED EVENTS
Reception hosted by Experimenta and the Australian High Commission
Monday 28 July, 7 -9pm

ACKNOWLEDGMENTExperimenta Play++ was initially developed with, and supported by, the
Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT).

ARTWORKS
> Immersion
> Zizi the Afffectionate Couch
> Charmed
> What’s Yours is Mine
> The Shy Picture

Immersion (2007)

Angela Barnett, Andrew Buchanan, Darren Ballingall, Chris MacKellar & Christian Rubino

An Experimenta Commission
Interactive video projection

An underwater scene projected onto the floor invites us to step into the ocean and interact with vibrant animated sea creatures. With Immersion, images projected from above offer an interactive 3D real time experience where we can make contact with and provoke responses from a range of animated creatures from the deep. The movement of our shadows causes schools of fish to scatter and individual sea creatures to transform in shape and colour.

Magically responding to shadows, electric eels generate lightening bolts, jellyfish light up and puffer fish expand. Virtual contact also produces an underwater symphony as each sea creature is distinguished by a specific sound. Immersion offers an imaginary experience of descent to three levels of the sea, incorporating a shallow rock pool, an underwater cave and the dark depths of the ocean. As we descend towards the ocean, creatures become increasingly vibrant and captivating.

The Immersion team live and work in and around Melbourne. They all studied together at the Centre for Animation and Interactive Media (AIM) at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2005. Immersion premiered at Experimenta Playground: International Biennial of Media Arts in Melbourne, August 2007 and is the team’s first collaborative artwork.

Angela Barnett is a multimedia artist and film-maker. Andrew Buchanan is a 3D animator, artist and film-maker.
Christian Rubino is a 3D animator, game developer and digital artist.
Darren Ballingall is an animator and interactive media artist.
Chris MacKellar is a sound artist, composer and audio engineer.

www.immersion.com

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ZiZi the Afffectionate Couch (2003)

Stephen Barrass, Linda Davy, Robert Davy & Kerry Richens

Interactive Sculpture

An invention inspired in equal parts by a shaved poodle, a fluffy Persian cat, and an exotic alien sea slug, ZiZi growls when ignored, purrs when sat on and emits soft groans of delight if you stroke her long fur. If left alone, ZiZi mews for attention. ZiZi is an affectionate ottoman couch that asks for emotional support while offering physical comfort. Her responses are triggered by touch-sensitive cables, which are sewn into the fluffy upholstery of the couch.

Twenty121 is a creative cooperative that combines individual practices in furniture making, sonification, fashion design, electronics, ceramics, programming, photography, carpentry,
multimedia, and perceptual psychology to produce interactive artworks. Their works include ZiZi the Afffectionate Couch, Scruffy Scallyrag and Fauxy the Fake Fur with Feelings and have been curated and exhibited in Experimenta House of Tomorrow Australian National Tour 2004; Media City Seoul Biennale 2005; Experimenta Under the Radar at FACT in Liverpool and the ICA in London 2006; WearNow Symposium at the National Museum of Australia 2007; and Who Let the Dogs Out: the Dog in Contemporary Australian Art, 2008.

Credits for ZiZi the Afffectionate Couch
Sound: Stephen Barrass
Furniture: Linda Davy
Electronics: Kerry Richens
Carpentry: Robert Davy

ZiZi the Afffectionate Couch premiered at Experimenta House of Tomorrow: International Biennial of Media Arts, 2003.

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Charmed (2007)

Priscilla Bracks, Gavin Sade & Matt Dwyer

An Experimenta Commission
Interactive installation

The touch sensitive screens of Charmed offer intimate views into a virtual world accessed via three glowing resin pods. Each pod provides an entry point to inhabitants of suburban neighbourhoods, apartment buildings and city spaces. Within these highly evolved snow domes, a black and white linear aesthetic depicts a world populated by mesmerised figures carrying out the routine tasks required of their environments. Haptic gestures, like touching or tapping, provide a pathway into the spaces and a connection with the cultures, uncovering the diminutive details of the lives of these animated figures. Touching the screen can break the spell and provoke change. Repeated tapping can cause chaos, disrupting lives, forcing computers to malfunction and causing traffic accidents. Tapping can directly impact inhabitants, even causing a man to drink so much that the inevitable happens and he wets his pants. In Charmed each portal offers an impression of omnipotence as private lives and public spaces are exposed and controlled by our touch.

Priscilla Bracks, Gavin Sade and Matt Dwyer all live and work in Brisbane . Priscilla Bracks is a visual artist practicing in photography, illustration, installation and new media. She has had solo exhibitions of her work in Melbourne and Brisbane and has participated in exhibitions in Dubai, Lille and St Tropez, France. Gavin Sade is an educator, researcher and designer in the field of interactive computational media, with a background in music and sound. He teaches interaction design and new media at the Queensland University of Technology. Matt Dwyer is a jewellery, lighting and object designer. Matt has exhibited his work nationally, and internationally in exhibitions in Barcelona, Shanghai, Bangkok and Singapore. Charmed premiered at Experimenta Playground: International Biennial of Media Arts in Melbourne, August 2007.

www.kuuki.com.au

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What’s Yours Is Mine (2007)

David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton

An Experimenta Commission
Interactive sculpture

What’s Yours Is Mine is a sculptural installation that creates an illusion of a forest scene to explore the intersection between physical and virtual space. Inspired by childhood mythology,
a hyper-real magic faraway tree holding portals into a simulated forest sprouts from a patch of Astroturf. Peering into the windows captures the attention of a bear at the centre of the
forest who begins jumping up and down, yelling ‘no, no, no’. This is a homage to Bruce Nauman’s nihilistic, anti-art performance video ‘No, No, New Museum’ (Clown Torture series, 1987) depicting the artist dressed as a knave, furiously jumping up and down, yelling ‘no, no, no’. Like Nauman’s work, What’s Yours is Mine initially confronts and later evokes an empathic relationship with the figure expressing fury. This installation uses absurdist humour to create a complex connection to illusory worlds. Using glass and light, What’s Yours Is Mine combines the magical Pepper’s Ghost technique with motion sensing equipment. New and old technologies combine to expose the slippage between the illusory forest environment and the real world.

David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton live and work in Sydney. They have been collaborating since 2005. Their collaborative practice draws on popular culture, art history, childhood mythology and vintage optical phenomena. Their work has been included in Vertigo, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth (2007); Eyes, Lies and Illusions, ACMI, Melbourne (2006-7); Locating the Photographic, Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart (2006); The sound before you make it, Wollongong Art Centre, NSW (2006); and Phatspace, Sydney (2005). What’s Yours is Mine premiered at Experimenta Playground: International Biennial of Media Arts in Melbourne, August 2007.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its principal arts funding and advisory body. Special thanks to Eric Lawrey for technical assistance.

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The Shy Picture (2005)

Narinda Reeders & David MacLeod

An Experimenta Commission
Interactive video installation

A small photograph hangs on the gallery wall, quiet, unobtrusive and mysterious. As we approach, the figures in the picture appear to sense us coming, they take cover, running and hiding; sneaking back only when they feel it is safe. Custom software and motion
sensing enables The Shy Picture to detect our movement, allowing the characters in the picture to assess the presence or absence of intruders. Combining Reeders and MacLeod’s photographic, video, and programming skills, The Shy Picture resembles an early black & white film still which comes to life, but refuses to disclose the plot.

Narinda Reeders is a photo-media and performance artist with a backgound in Computer Science and Psychology whose work combines the visual elements of digital video and photography with computer programming and electronics. Her photomedia work has been exhibited at the Centre for Contemporary Photography and the Australian Centre for Photography. Reeders’ interactive installation, Help Your Self, premiered at Experimenta
Playground: International Biennial of Media Arts in Melbourne, August 2007.

David MacLeod is an artist whose photographs, videos and sculptures are frequently exhibited across Australia in both group and solo exhibitions and are held in public and private collections throughout Australia.

Project team: Andrew Baxter (custom software)

The Shy Picture premiered at Experimenta Vanishing Point: International Biennial of Media Arts in Melbourne, September 2005.

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SUPPORTERS

Experimenta gratefully acknowledges the support of the Australia Council, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, Screen Australia, Film Victoria, Arts Victoria, The City of Melbourne, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory governments.