Top Australian media artists introduced at Art Taipei – public lecture by Antoanetta Ivanova

MEDIA VIDEO AUSTRALIA ARTISTS CURATORS AGENCY ACQUISITION ART FAIR EXHIBITION

Ela-Video “Encoded” was a special exhibition organised as part of the broader Ela-Video exhibition held as part of this year’s Art Taipei. Guest curated by Antoanetta Ivanova, also a producer and agent for Australian media artists, “Encoded” aimed to show the diversity and sophistication of media and video art being created in Australia today. Art Radar attended a public lecture in which Ivanova introduced the eight Australian media artists we have listed below.

Antoanetta Ivanova speaking at a public lecture on Australian media art at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Ivanova manages a company called Novamedia which has been in operation since 2001. Novamedia is unique in that it is the first media arts agency to be established in Australia; their focus is on media and digital art. They provide advice to private collectors and organisations looking to acquire new media works, and also try to generate opportunities to promote Australian media art overseas. An example of this, according to Ivanova, is the “very important exhibition on art and science collaborations” they took to China in 2006.

This list, generated from those artists discussed by Ivanova in her talk, shows “the diverse range of media art” produced by leading Australian proponents in this field. Only one of the artists listed here, Jon McCormack, had work in Ela-Video “Encoded”. The other artists in the exhibition were Jonathan Duckworth, Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs, Martin Walch, Jess MacNeil and Justine Cooper. The artists are listed below in the order Ivanova spoke about them. We encourage you to visit the artists’ websites to explore their work in more depth.

Matthew Gardiner

Matthew Gardiner is most well-known for his work with origami, namely robotic origami. He has completed a number of residencies with major scientific and new media research laboratories and has exhibited his origami work worldwide in galleries and public spaces. He is also the founder and director of Airstrip, a website design company.

“The artist will design his object on the computer and make it for the printer. The final artwork is interactive. The origami has a sensor in the middle and it can sense when people approach…. As you go across it the origami opens and if you move away it will fold in…. He has been making traditional paper origami for many, many years and he lived in Japan…. He translates [a] traditional art form into a very contemporary art form.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Matthew Gardiner's "robotic origami" work, introduced by speaker Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Stelarc

Since 1968, Stelarc has undertaken numerous performances during which he manipulates his body, most often in involuntary ways and using mechanical means. As described in his biography, he has “used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body.” In addition to his art work, he has been a research fellow and named an honorary professor for numerous Australian and international universities.

“[Stelarc’s] a performing artist. He has attached his body to various machines to show how there is a clash between the body and machinery in contemporary society.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Patricia Piccinini

“[Piccinini’s] a more traditional artist because she makes sculptures but her work raises important issues about the natural environment and artificial nature…. She uses organic … and artificial forms in her work. She’s fascinated by the modern sciences of biotechnology and genetic engineering and she says that if people are disturbed by her work it’s because [it] asks questions about fundamental aspects of our existence. With all these advances in technology, what kind of world are we really making?” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Patricia Piccinini's sculpture work, introduced by speaker Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Alex Davies

Davies graduated from The University of New South Wales in 2001 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Media Arts department of the institution’s College of Fine Arts. He is a prolific artist who creates his interactive, installation and performance art works using various media including sound and music, video and photography.

“As you go through the exhibition space you will see a … hole to look through. Audiences line up to look through to see what’s on the other side. But all they see is their own back plus a ghost person standing behind them…. The work mixes real time video captures of us and puts another person in there. He also did another [installation with] speakers in the space and you could actually hear people standing around you.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Chris Henschke

Henschke’s most recent work with the Australian Synchrotron is an art and science collaboration that has brought about an entirely new art form – using light beams to create artworks. As explained on the artist’s website, the Synchrotron “allows one to ‘see’ the spectrum of light energy from microwaves to xrays and look at objects at scales of a millionth of a metre.” The artist is participating in a three month residency with the Synchrotron, set up by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), in which he will use the technology to create “a ‘synchrotron art’ mural commission.”

Henschke is based in the Australian city of Melbourne and has been working with digital media for the past fifteen years. His main areas of research are in art and science relationships, interactive and hybrid media and experimental audio.

Lynette Wallworth

Lynette Wallworth is an Australian video installation, photography and short film artist who specialises in the creation of immersive and interactive installation environments. Her representing gallery, Forma Arts and Media Limited, describes her work as being about “the relationships between ourselves and nature, about how we are made up of our physical and biological environments, even as we re-make the world through our activities. She uses technology to reveal the hidden intricacies of human immersion in the wide, complex world.”

“People are given a glass bowl and with the glass bowl they go into a dark room and search to capture light that is beamed from the ceiling. When they capture the light, images of deep ocean and deep space are projected into the bowl and then people pass the bowl around to others to experience.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Lynette Wallworth's interactive tactile art, introduced by speaker Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010. Image property of Art Radar Asia.

Daniel Crooks

Born and educated in New Zealand, Crooks received an Australia Council Fellowship in 1997 to research motion control at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology which brought him to Australia. Since then he has participated in numerous exhibitions in Australia and abroad, working with a range of media including digital video, photography and installation. He is most well-known for his ongoing Time Slice project, begun in 1997, in which he uses the computer to manipulate video images to stretch time.

Craig Walsh

Craig Walsh works predominantly with site-specific large-scale image projection, most often in public places and always created in response to existing environments. He has, for example, projected huge faces onto trees in the Australian city of Melbourne and has projected sharks swimming in water onto the ground (first) floor windows of a corporate building.

“[Walsh’s] work takes a lot of time to develop and very powerful projectors and technology to set up. He works first of all with small block architectural models to the design the projection … and then he [conducts] many tests [to see] how the projection will work…” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Jon McCormack

“Jon McCormack is one of the very few artists in Australia who creates work by writing computer code. He was trained in both art and computer science – he has two degrees. For example, the work we’re showing here at Art Taipei is not an animation…. What you experience is actually the computer making the drawings…. The drawings happen before our eyes – it’s not recorded…. It never repeats…. The artwork is a programme that Jon designed.” Antoanetta Ivanova at Art Taipei 2010

Jon McCormack's computer programmed interactive work as displayed at Art Taipei 2010's Ela-Video "Encoded" exhibition on Australian media art. Image courtesy Art Taipei.

KN

Related Topics: Australian artists, biological (bio) art, new media art, technology, the human body

Related Posts:

• ‘A Red Carpet’ for Singapore’s Digital Nights Showcase, courtesy artist Tom Carr – September 2010 – a short news piece on this large scale public projection artwork
• The 17th Sydney Biennale – Art Radar rounds up highlights, disappointments and critiques – August 2010 – a run-down on what the critics had to say about this year’s fare
• Will Youtube become a new platform for video art? Guggenheim experiments – July 2010 – an overview of this new technology collaboration
• Young Chinese artist Lu Yang brings anti-humanist elements to the Hong Kong art scene – June 2010 – an interview with this artist on art/science collaboration
• Debbie Han first Korean artist to be awarded the Sovereign Asian Art Prize – May 2010 – guest writer Kate Bryan on this artist work with the female form

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on new media art and art/science collaborations

Advertisement

Anti “commercial” art, Luk Tsing Yuen comments on corporate greed: video

INTERNET TV 3D ART VIDEO

Art Radar Asia brings you yet another insightful video from Internet channel ChooChooTV’s show [art]attack. This four minute production allows Hong Kong-based social artist Luk Tsing Yuen to explain his art output and offers viewers a chance to share space in his studio.

Luk Tsing Yuen

A fairly young artist, Luk Tsing Yuen received his BA in 2005  and is currently a student of Art and Design in Education at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Tsing Yuen takes the viewer on a tour of some of his recent works explaining each with a background of his inspirations and concerns. Working with 3D objects, Tsing Yuen uses a certain plastic type known as polyurethane. Fashioning plastic into detailed objects in response to social issues like the preservation of the environment and the commercialised culture crisis, Tsing Yuen’s works combine a passionate feeling for social needs and aesthetic imagination.

In a work called Art becoming merchandise, Tsing Yuen shows us what looks like a display box within which rows of decorative objects are stuck to the wall. Referring to the theme of assembly line production of culture and art, he places each “art” object as a product like any other – mass produced. He  goes on to say,

I want to express the fact that businessmen are destroying our history and artwork.

Another artwork features multiple slabs of transparent plastic within which one sees fossilized butterflies that have retained their colorfulness. Tsing Yuen says that the inspiration for this work was derived from a recent construction site at the Fung Yuen butterfly reserve where in the name of a better environment, the dust and grime from the construction was killing a great number of protected butterflies.

Luk Tsing Yuen has participated in several local solo and group exhibitions including “Fotanian” (2003), “A Person A [ ]” (2004), “Local East-Kowloon Art In Progress” (2006), “Industry and Silence” (2007), and “Passionate Objects” (2008) and is currently based in Hong Kong.

Watch the video on the ChooChooTV show [art]attack (length of video, 4:03 minutes).

AM/KN

Related Topics: Hong Kong artists , biological art, consumerism

Related Posts:

• Rise of the celebrity artist – Vietnamese artist Trong Nguyen featured on Bravo TV reality series – July 2010 – a look at the TV series Work of Art: The Next Great Artist on Bravo TV
• First Hong Kong solo for Korean artist Lee Jae-Hyo – July 2010 – discusses some of the artists’ most substantial works: “Nail” and “Wood” series
• Ex-Tate Modern director Lars Nittve to join West Kowloon M+ – July 2010 – an exploration of Nittve’s recent appointment to the West Kowloon team
• Your interpretation or mine? Hong Kong artist Chow Chun Fai reflects in video interview – July 2010 – also from ChooChoo TV’s ArtAttack, watch the artist share the paradox of meaning of art
• Japanese sculptor Kohei Nawa speaks on new internet TV platform Studio Banana – May 2010 – a rare glimpse into the works of Nawa where the artist reveals the Internet as a source of great inspiration

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on emerging artists and platforms

Young Chinese artist Lu Yang brings anti-humanist elements to the Hong Kong art scene

CHINESE ART HONG KONG ART GALLERIES BIOLOGICAL ART

Chinese artist Lu Yang has shocked and electrified the Hong Kong art scene with her recent solo new media exhibition, “A Torturous Vision“, held at Input/Output (I/O).

Lu Yang's exhibition "A Torturous Vision" was presented by Input/Output in Hong Kong from April to June this year.

Showcasing her latest music video work Dictator, Lu Yang takes the audience onto a mind-boggling journey that aesthetically explores the biology of control systems in living frogs and amphibians. Progressing from her previous work Happy Tree, which shows living animals being treated with a centrally controlled pulse of electricity in a small tank, Lu Yang extracts some footage from the work and transforms them into highly aesthetical and technical forms that are presented with the accompaniment of sound composed by Wang Changcun.

Lu Yang’s ‘Dictator’ and ‘Happy Tree’ in I/O gallery’s latest bio art show.

“This work was created after I determined Happy Tree would not be exhibited again, and I had to find another way to complete the work besides including living animals. At that time Happy Tree remained incomplete in my mind, and I felt there were a number of possibilities related to the work that still needed to be pursued. I also felt there was a need to complete the work, so I chose to create a music video, but I must say apologetically, that I used the same electrical current to create the video track.” Lu Yang, quoted taken from an interview with Robin Peckham.

Despite Lu Yang’s vow to never again exhibit Happy Tree, she has been persuaded by I/O to show it again alongside Dictator and another video showing the process of applying electricity to frogs. On top of the three video installations, the exhibition also presents canvases showing two of the four projects with which Yang cooperated with science teams, including Zombie Music Box – Underwater Frog Leg Ballet and Ultimate Energy Conversion – Instruman.

Lu Yang is a graduate from the China Academy of Art in the Master of Arts New Media department. Although she is not the first to exhibit bio (biological) art in Hong Kong, nor the first to explore bio art in China, where the art form is growing among young graduates, she has radically challenged the boundaries of art set by Chinese philosophy with her anti-humanistic approach.

The artist expressed to Art Radar Asia that there are certainly boundaries that she sets for her art, but that these boundaries cannot be marked with tapes or frames. Asked how she draws the line between science exploration and science exploitation, Lu Yang made the following reply:

“Since I have not had another professional background for science, I just understand it through self-learning and I create works in between arts and science by combining them. However, my arts are not always in this format; I still have many other different works. My limited abilities in science prevent me from investigating it professionally, but the ultimate goal of science is to serve and explore for mankind, while art challenges certain questions.”

Lu Yang's canvas work 'Ultimate Energy Conversion – Instruman'.

In Hong Kong, where new media art is marginalized and considered quirky, the gallery was established a year ago to become the only art space in in the region that is primarily focused on the genre.

“The only way to raise it [new media art] out of it [the state of being marginalized and considered as quirky] is to engage in dialogues about it.” Rachel Connelly, Assistant Creative Director of I/O

Asked why the gallery decided to show Lu Yang’s work despite its ethical controversy, Connelly says that since the work inspires people to reconsider their identity and know more about themselves, the topic is rich and interesting enough to make the ethical concerns relatively less important.

“A Torturous Vision” has attracted a great range of visitors from tourists and interested individuals to students, architects and engineers. It has provoked conversations and discussions among visitors, – just what Rachel Connelly wanted and expected – while exploring different topics such as the definition of new media art and bio art versus science.

CBKM/KN

Related Topics: Chinese artists, gallery shows, venues – Hong Kong

Related Posts:

• Gao Minglu’s maximalist exhibition blurs boundaries between traditional and contemporary Chinese art – June 2010
• Interventions explore art industry relationships in curator Meenakshi Thirukode’s Guild Art Gallery show: interview – June 2010
• Conflicting views about Chinese impact on art market – June 2010
• This is Hong Kong: video art exhibition highlights differences between Hong Kong and the mainland – March 2010
• Sound art, trickery and time – interview Hong Kong new media artist Chilai Howard Cheng – November 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on new media and bio art