Eröffnung Opening: 26.01.2012, 19:00 Künstler ist anwesend
Artist is present Ausstellungsdauer Duration: 27.01. – 18.03.
2012 Öffnungszeiten Opening hours: täglich daily 10:00 – 22:00
Kuration Curation: Ruth Schnell and Wolfgang Fiel.
Schauraum quartier21 (Electric Avenue)
MuseumsQuartier
Museumsplatz 1/5
1070 Wien
Vienna, Austria.
www.dieangewandte.at
www.digitalekunst.ac.at
Spectre explores the potential of data as material for manifesting things that lie outside our normal frames of reference - so far away, so close, so massive, so small and so ad infinitum. The spectre of Schwaiger is made manifest from the atomic forces that bind the Schauraum dust. A space dreams.
spectre [ˈspɛktə/] noun
1. a visible incorporeal spirit, a ghost, apparition, phantasm, phantasma, phantom.
2. a mental image of some entity of terror or dread: the spectre of death…
[C17: from Latin spectrum, literally 'image, apparition', from specere 'to look at']
Spectre builds on a portfolio of data driven work and ‘nano’ art developed by the artist and collaborators, such as A Mote it is…2 (Phillips, M. 2010) and i-DAT’s Operating Systems1. These projects explore the ubiquity of data streamed from an instrumentalised world and its potential as a material for manifesting things that lie outside of the normal frames of reference - things so far away, so close, so massive, so small and so ad infinitum. These digital practices use alchemical processes that enable a series of transformations: from data to code to experience to behaviour.
The instruments that now do our seeing for us translate their visions through data. The emergence of digital imaging technologies that provide access to photons from the edge of the universe and the atomic force that binds molecules offer us a whole new vocabulary for articulating the world. Atomic Force Microscope, Scanning Electron Microscope, X-ray computed tomography and the Radio telescope open up new dimensions, as more dimensions are unveiled, more realities are modelled and more truths envisioned. There are (to paraphrase Hamlet) more things in heaven and earth than currently dreamt of in our media philosophy.
“A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.”3 A Mote it is… explored our relationship with technologies that troubles the mind’s eye. Our ability to shift scales, from the smallest thing to the largest thing has been described as the ‘transcalar imaginary’4. Hamlet’s Fathers Ghost is seen but not believed and one is left to wonder if it is just the seeing of it that makes it real - its existence totally dependent on the desire of the viewer to see it. The ‘mote’ or speck of dust in the eye of the mind of the beholder both creates the illusion and convinces us that what we see is real. Something just out of the corner of our minds eye, those little flecks magnified by our desire to see more clearly. Yet the harder we look the more blurred our vision becomes. A ‘mote’ is both a noun and a verb. Middle English with Indo-European roots, its early Christian origins and Masonic overtones describe the smallest thing possible and empower it with the ability to conjure something into being (so mote it be…). This dual state of becoming and being (even if infinitesimally tiny) render it a powerful talisman in the context of nano technology.
i-DAT’s Operating Systems5 project was initially inspired by early work exploring the potential of spaces recording events that happened within them. Arch-OS was described as a ‘Psychometric’ Architecture, a viral infection of a building that replayed at night the activities that took place during the day. A kind of dreaming architecture. Psychometry… “The concept of objects (or places) seeming to record events and then play them back for sensitive people is generally referred to as psychometry. The objects can be called psychometric objects or token objects”6 (Morris, R. 1986).
Spectre suggests that the Schauraum is such an architecture and that the memories of the building are bonded to its fabric by the atomic forces that have now been unlocked by the Atomic Force Microscope. Spectre builds on the collision of A Mote it is… and Psychometric Architecture by drawing on the experiences of Professor Gustav Adolf Schwaiger, the Technical Director of the Austrian Broadcast Corporation, and his collaboration with famous medium Rudi Schneider in the late 1930’s to the early 1940’s. “G.A. Schwaiger… conducted some private (and rather obscure) experiments with the famous medium Rudi Schneider in the studio of a female painter… In fact the flat could have been right above our exhibition space (Schauraum).”7 (Fiel, W. 2011).
According to Mulacz’s History of Parapsychology in Austria, “Schwaiger in his research focussed on investigating that ‘substance’ and its effects applied then state-of-the-art apparatus, such as remote observation by a TV set.”8 (Mulacz, P. 2000). That ‘substance’ was the ectoplasm that would emerge from Schneider mouth during their experiments. Spectre extends these experiments by broadcasting live feeds from the space of the Schauraum and simultaneously replaying the physical remnants of these happenings as captured in the atomic forces binding the dust from the their laboratory.
The spectres of Schwaiger and Schneider or the ectoplasm they conjured up are manifest through the Spectre installation.
References:
1: Phillips, M. ‘A Mote it is…’ Art in the Age of Nano Technology, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA. For exhibition in 02/2010. http://www.i-dat.org/a-mote-it-is-update/
2: http://www.i-dat.org/i-dat-launches-op-sycom/
3. Shakespeare, W. Hamlet. Act 1, Scene 1, Line 129.
4. Transcalar Imaginary. “mundus imaginalis traversing the micro, meso, and macro…” Curated by David McConville. http://www.scoop.it/t/transcalar-imaginary/
5. http://www.i-dat.org/i-dat-launches-op-sycom/
6. Robert L. Morris (Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh 1985 to 2004) in a letter to the artist 21 October 1986.
7. Email correspondence with Wolfgang Fiel. 2011.
8. Mulacz, P. History of Parapsychology In Austria. Notes for a History of Parapsychological Developments in Austria. Paper presented at The Parapsychological Association (PA) – the 43rd Annual Convention held from 17th to 20th of August, 2000 in Freiburg i. Br., Germany, hosted by the ‘Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene’ (IGPP). http://parapsychologie.info/history.htm#paper
With thanks to:
Luis Girao for MAXing out…,
Chris Saunders and Dr Simon Lock at i-DAT,
Wolfgang Fiel for the Ghost hunting,
&
Professor Genhua Pan at the Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory at Plymouth University, for the AFM scan.
Image:
Spectre-AFM Schwaiger Trace.jpg 13cm x 10cm, 300 dpi
Caption: Atomic Force Microscope Spectral Trace of Schwaiger.
Stonehouse Lecture Theatre Portland Square
17.00-18.00 on Friday 3rd December.
Examining Life at a Nano Level.
In this talk Paul Thomas will demonstrate via the nano art project ‘Nanoessence’, ideas on what constitutes the real and the artificial. The ‘Nanoessence’ project aimed to create a visual expression of life at a sub-cellular level, re-examining boundaries and materiality within the human context. A single engineered immortal skin cell was scanned in vitro with an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to create a visualisation of the space between, life and death at a nano level. The presentation will explore how nanotechnological research is challenging humanistic ideas concerning life and what constitutes materiality.
Paul Thomas: Dr Paul Thomas, is currently Head of Painting at the College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales. Paul chair numerous international conferences and is the co-chair of the Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference 2010. In 2000 Paul instigated and was the founding Director of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth.
Paul has been working in the area of electronic arts since 1981 when he co-founded the group Media-Space. Media-Space was part of the first global link up with artists connected to ARTEX. From 1981-1986 the group was involved in a number of collaborative exhibitions and was instrumental in the establishment a substantial body of research. Paul’s current research project ‘Nanoessence’ explores the space between life and death at a nano level. The project is part of an ongoing collaboration with the Nanochemistry Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology and SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia. The previous project ‘Midas’ was researching at a nano level the transition phase between skin and gold. Paul has recently completed working on an intelligent architecture public art project for the Curtin Mineral and Chemistry Research Precinct. In 2009 he established Collaborative Research in Art Science and Humanity (CRASH) at Curtin http://crash.curtin.edu.au
Paul is a practicing electronic artist whose work has exhibited internationally and can be seen on his website http://www.visiblespace.com
Introduction…
The Scale Electric workshop (19 & 20/07/2010) couples the power of the Atomic Force Microscope to touch the infinitesimally small with the potential of the Full Dome environment to immerse participants in visualisations of the incomprehensibly big.
Throughout the last Century we were reintroduced to the idea of an invisible world. The development of sensing technologies allowed us to sense things in the world that we were unaware of (or maybe things we had just forgotten about?). The Scale Electric - the invisible ‘hertzian’ landscape was made accessible through instruments that could measure, record and broadcast our fears and desires. These instruments endow us with powers that in previous centuries would have been deemed ‘occult’ or ‘magic’.
Our Twenty Fist Century magic instruments mark a dramatic shift from the hegemony of the eye to a reliance on technologies that do our seeing for us - things so big, small or invisible that it takes a leap of faith to believe they are really there. Our view of the ‘real world’ is increasingly understood through images made of data, things that are measured and felt rather than seen. What we know and what we see is not the same thing - if you see what I mean?
Our ability to shift scales, from the smallest thing to the largest thing has been described as the ‘transcalar imaginary. The workshop will enable participants to touch the nano level and then immerse themselves within it through visualisations and sonifications.
Context:
Scale Electric extends a series of collaborative projects orbiting i-DAT’s research agenda. It builds on:
practical workshops to explore the application of novel and innovative technologies to creative practice (http://www.i-dat.org/2006-slidingscale/, http://www.i-dat.org/far-away-so-close/, http://www.i-dat.org/ahobartletti-dat/, etc)
projects with the Immersive Vision Theatre (a 40 seat 9m Full Dome digital projection system) a transdisciplinary instrument for the manifestation of material, immaterial and imaginary worlds - modelling, visualization, sonification and simulation.
research projects such as Arch-OS and Ecoid’s which stream real time data to facilitate insights into complex temporal architectural and ecological systems (http://www.arch-os.com/)
and more recently nano technology projects in collaboration with the Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory and John Curtin Gallery, Perth, WA - Art in the age of nanotechnology, 5/02 – 30/04/2010 (http://johncurtingallery.curtin.edu.au/)
Output generated by this workshop will contribute to the Ubiquity Journal Published in 2011 by Intellect. (http://ubiquityjournal.net/, http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/index/).
Scale Electric explores some of the ‘transcalar” (http://www.elumenati.com/products/TInarrative.html) conundrums that are increasingly intruding into our daily consciousness.
Schedule…
Monday 19/07/2010
10.00-10.15: Introductions, Briefing: Location - Babbage 213
10.15-10.30: Presentation 1: Prof Mike Phillips.
10.35-10.50: Presentation 2: Dr Chris Speed.
10.55-11.10: Presentation 3: Prof Genhua Pan.
11.15-11.30: Presentation 4: Pete Carss.
12.00-12.30: Tour of the AFM & IVT
12.30-13.30: Lunch
13.30-14.30: Production Planning: Location - Babbage 213
14.30-17.30: AFM Scanning: Location - The Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory,
Tuesday 20/07/2010
10.00-10.30: Briefing: Location Babbage 213
10.30-12.30: Project development AFM & IVT
12.30-13.30: Lunch
13.30-15.30: Project development AFM & IVT
15.30-17.30: IVT Manifestations
Process…
A: Experiencing Atoms:
The first practical session will utilise the AFM in the Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory to produce data and images. The materials themselves will be defined during the morning session. Participants will be asked to propose matter and associated narratives for examination.
B: Modelling Experience
Software templates will allow the interpretation and visualisation of the data gathered by the AFM. These visualisations will be hacked, tweaked and ultimately experienced within the Immersive Vision Theatre.
Project Team…
Pete Carss (http://www.i-dat.org/pete-carrs/)
Prof Genhua Pan (http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/gpan)
Prof Mike Phillips (http://www.i-dat.org/mike-phillips/)
Dr Chris Speed (http://fields.eca.ac.uk/?page_id=65)
Supported by…
The Institute of Digital Art & Technology: [http://www.i-dat.org/]
Manifest Research Group
The Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory
The Centre for Media Art & Design Research
Ubiquity Journal
art in the age of nanotechnology
A Perth International Arts Festival exhibition - 5 February - 30 April 2010
The unique works developed for art in the age of nanotechnology operate at the intersection of art, science and technology, demonstrating innovative examples of contemporary art and scientific collaboration.
The exhibition will comprise of a series of collaborative projects designed to challenge, explore and critique our understanding of the material world and will bring together artists and scientists from the around the world to present new ways of seeing, sensing and connecting with matter that’s miniscule and abstract.
art in the age of nanotechnology will feature internationally-recognised artists and scientists such as Christa Sommerer (Austria) & Laurent Mignonneau (France); Paul Thomas (Aus) & Kevin Raxworthy (Aus); Mike Philips (UK); Boo Chapple (Aus) and Victoria Vesna (USA) & James Gimzewski (Scotland).
http://johncurtingallery.curtin.edu.au/exhibitions/future.cfm
A Mote it is… (from the ‘art in the age of nano technology catalogue).
“A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.” (1)
Words spoken by Horartio to describe Hamlet’s father’s ghost. In this Shakespearian play the ghost is seen but not believed and one is left to wonder if it is just the seeing of it that makes it real - its existence totally dependent on the desire of the viewer to see it. The ‘mote’ or speck of dust in the eye of the mind of the beholder both creates the illusion and convinces us that what we see is real. Something just out of the corner of our minds eye, those little flecks magnified by our desire to see more clearly. Yet the harder we look the more blurred our vision becomes.
A ‘mote’ is both a noun and a verb. Middle English with Indo-European roots, its early Christian origins and Masonic overtones describe the smallest thing possible and empower it with the ability to conjure something into being (so mote it be…). This dual state of becoming and being (even if infinitesimally tiny) render it a powerful talisman in the context of nano technology.
Throughout the last Century we were reintroduced to the idea of an invisible world. The development of sensing technologies allowed us to sense things in the world that we were unaware of (or maybe things we had just forgotten about?). The invisible ‘Hertzian’ landscape was made accessible through instruments that could measure, record and broadcast our fears and desires. Our radios, televisions and mobile phones revealed a parallel world that surrounds us. These instruments endow us with powers that in previous centuries would have been deemed occult or magic.
Our Twenty First Century magic instruments mark a dramatic shift from the hegemony of the eye to a reliance on technologies that do our seeing for us - things so big, small or invisible that it takes a leap of faith to believe they are really there. Our view of the ‘real world’ is increasingly understood through images made of data, things that are measured and felt rather than seen. What we know and what we see is not the same thing - if you see what I mean? The worrying thing is that for a long time we thought the invisible world was made of layers of transparent electromagnetic fields, now through technologies such as the Atomic Force Microscope we are faced with the reality that the ‘invisible’ is actually what constitutes our material world, we can reach out and touch it!
It is our relationship with these technologies that troubles the mind’s eye. Our ability to shift scales, from the smallest thing to the largest thing has been described as the ‘transcalar imaginary’ (2). In this context astronomer Carl Sagan described the Earth as a “mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.” (3) The famous image taken from Voyager 1 in 1990 shows the planet suspended in an infinite Universe. A mote that seems so large to us, but which is in fact so cosmologically small, disturbs our sensibilities and desire for order in our world.
About A Mote it is…:
A Mote it is… is constructed from data captured by an AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) from a ‘mote’ or piece of dust extracted from the artist’s eye. The whirlwind of data projected within the gallery is rendered invisible by the gaze of the viewer. The more we look the more invisible it becomes - look away and it re-emerges from the maelstrom of data. A ghost of the mote can be seen in viewers peripheral vision but never head on. – if you see what I mean?
Notes:
1: Shakespeare, W. Hamlet. Act 1, Scene 1, Line 129.
2: http://www.twine.com/twine/12vx9k6qs-2zp/transcalar-imaginary
3: Sagan, C. 1994,Pale Blue Dot, Random House. p6
Many thanks to:
Lee Nutbean and Justin Roberts at i-DAT.
Professor Genhua Pan and Yuqing Du at the Wolfson Nanotechnology Laboratory at University of Plymouth.
More images:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Mike.Phillips.net/AFMAMoteItIs#
i-500 Project Launch
The Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett has officially opened the new Curtin Resources and Chemistry Precinct and the i-500 Project. The $116 million precinct is the culmination of partnerships between Curtin, BHP Billiton, the Western Australian Government, and the Federal Government.
The i-500 is an artwork that will perform a vital and integral role in the development of scientific research in the fields of nanochemistry, atomic microscopy and computer modelling, applied chemistry, environmental science, biotechnology, and forensic science. Through dynamic visualizations and sonifications the artwork represents quantitative scientific research as an integral part of the architectural environment. The large-scale visual projections, distributed echo nodes and multiple sonic zones that constitute the art work reveal to the occupants a normally invisible dialogue between the researcher, the research community and the environment. The i-500 translates dynamic data from the physical and social interactions within the building into a volatile and evolving interactive art work.
The opening of the Resources and Chemistry Precinct and launch of the i-500 begins an initial engagement between the dynamic art work and the community that occupies the Precinct. This process will continue until the final manifestation of the work for the Art in the Age of Nanotechnology Perth International Arts Festival exhibition 5 February - 30 April 2010.
The i-500 is a collaborative project between Paul Thomas, Chris Malcolm and Mike Phillips who were commissioned to produce a sustainable, integrated, interactive art work from rich flows of research and general data generated through interaction in the new Curtin University Resources and Chemistry Precinct. This data will be the source material that is reflected through the architectural fabric and surface pattern of the space.
The i-500 project has established an interactive entity that inhabits the Resources and Chemistry Precinct at Curtin University of Technology. The i-500 is a reciprocal architecture, evolutionary in form and content, responding to the activities and occupants of the new structures.
To develop an integrated interactive art work that augments the physical architecture with real time data the project team has worked in close collaboration with:
Curtin University of Technology (http://www.curtin.edu.au/),
John Curtin Gallery (http://www.johncurtingallery.curtin.edu.au/),
Woods Bagot Architects (http://www.woodsbagot.com/),
Artsource (http://www.artsource.net.au/)
i-500 Ingredients:
i-500 Core Server: MySQL, PhP, Flash Engine.
Echo Node Server: MySQL, PhP, Flash Engine.
2 x Projectors
16 x Echo Node (A/V)
5 x Sonic Zones
i-500 Vision system
CAT6 / Fiber optic Network
Code
i-500 Team:
Dr Paul Thomas: http://www.visiblespace.com
Chris Malcolm: http://www.johncurtingallery.org/
Mike Phillips: http://www.i-dat.org
Lee Nutbean: http://www.i-dat.org
More images here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Mike.Phillips.net/OpeningPics#
http://picasaweb.google.com/Mike.Phillips.net/OpeningPics02#
Work in progress for -
art in the age of nanotechnology
A Perth International Arts Festival exhibition - 5 February - 30 April 2010
The unique works developed for art in the age of nanotechnology will operate at the intersection of art, science and technology, demonstrating innovative examples of contemporary art and scientific collaboration.
The exhibition will comprise of a series of collaborative projects designed to challenge, explore and critique our understanding of the material world and will bring together artists and scientists from the around the world to present new ways of seeing, sensing and connecting with matter that’s miniscule and abstract.
art in the age of nanotechnology will feature internationally-recognised artists and scientists such as Christa Sommerer (Austria) & Laurent Mignonneau (France); Paul Thomas (Aus) & Kevin Raxworthy (Aus); Mike Philips (UK); Boo Chapple (Aus) and Victoria Vesna (USA) & James Gimzewski (Scotland).
http://johncurtingallery.curtin.edu.au/exhibitions/future.cfm
