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INSTALLATION & MIXED MEDIA
ECHOING SHANGHAI (2008)
Ambient Sound Art / Unplugged Media Art
(click to enlarge)As a child, I thought if I dug a tunnel through the earth at which I was standing, I would simply pop up in China, because it was apparently on the other side of the earth at the place where I was standing. Fascinated with sound and seeking a simpler solution than digging, I thought of a more practical solution similar to pre radar times: Sound travels, so if I put my ear to the ground, I would simply hear the Chinese talking. Experimenting, I believed it to be true, but instead of Chairman Moa giving speeches, it was my downstairs neighbor’s television playing the evening news. Sound is made up of waves that radiate into infinity and it does not really matter whether one can hear the Chinese or not, because we can imagine that one can hear a very small percent of what they are talking about and discover the world of hidden sounds while doing so. Using the custom made “Listening Sticks” that act as acoustic aids, the installation “Echoes of Shanghai” lets one discover the “other side of things”: The wonderful world of daily life in Shanghai streets and how it is so portrayed in sound, even if it might be just a faint echo of it all: The taxi drivers honking, the bicycle peddlers ringing their bells, fake market people, and the endless sounds of all those people talking, shouting and singing.
Performers: General Public
Performance Space: ZhdK, Zurich; Cargobar, Basel
SWISSREMAKE (2007)
Public Art Installation for 3d Screen
(click to enlarge)The “Swiss ReMake” Project is a public art project developed for the 3d NOVA screen located in the Zurich main train station. The project concerns itself with creating public understanding for technology through a concept that combines the immediacy of public art with the political content of social sculpture. The project runs on a computer application that takes the national flag of Switzerland and redesigns it through algorithmic variations. The variations created interesting permutations easily recognized as being related to the original pattern; they are accompanied by a series of profound quotes from artists and scientists on the importance of cultural adaptation and changing tradition- a common fact in art and scientific research. The original Swiss flag occasionally reappears between variations, underscoring the relationship between tradition and cultural adaptation. The project is greeted by one hundred thousand visitors per day and has been come a popular sight in the train station during rush hours.
Team: Art Clay, Thomas Stricker, Andrew Jones
Exhibition Space: Main Train Station Zurich
→ Click Here to Watch the Video Clip
THIRD MIND (2007) Art Clay & Corrina Mattner
An Installation of dazzling lights, celestially colored images and sounds
(click to enlarge)A number of devices exist that stimulate the mind of the user by visual and audio signals. The fundamental principle applied to each is that a particular train of visual and aural pulses leads to different states of mind. The Dream Machine -the centrepiece of the installation- was conceived in the sixties by Brion Gysin. It produces patterns of pulsating light created by the oscillations as it turns. The light coming against the eyelids effortlessly produces a relaxed state of mind, because the optical nerve is stimulated and this alters the brain’s electrical oscillations. After a study that focused on flickering and colour reflection and another study on sound enhancement, the dream machined was provided with a „colour mode“ (the inside surface was painted purple) and the pattern was altered so the flicker frequency could be measured and coupled to sound. A set of incandescent „Growth Ring Pillow“ provide for proper viewing and the needed atmosphere. The sound of the installation couples dynamically to the flickering of the Dream Machine. The dynamic processing of the sound is made possible by an infrared sensor system designed for tracking the flickering frequency and to drive a custom computer program. An omni directional loudspeaker system orchestrates the environment sonically. The flickering of the machine, the resultant ambient patterns on the wall, the pillows, and the drowning electronic sonic landscape are the single elements of the installation. Alone, the elements of the installation represent single media that effect a single sense organ; together they create a “Gesamtkunst” that embrace the theme “inner versions” as a whole and effects the entire mind-body of the user.
Exhibition Space: EWZ, Zurich
→ Click Here to Watch the Video Clip
HOERROOM (2004) Art Clay
An electro-acoustic Sound Installation for Elastic Cabled Instruments
(click to enlarge)Each of the HörRoom projects uses the 'harmonic contents' of an existing exhibition space. The harmonics contents are singled out and then bound for exploration within an artistic presentation, which the audience is invited to experience directly. In the Kunsthaus in Wiesbaden, Germany, the HörRoom project was designed for visitors by having them interact with a "game instrument” that filled the entire space. Here, as the visitors make there way through the installation, the phenomena resonance and reflection gets conveyed poetically. Black elastic cords of different lengths are spanned through the space horizontally and vertically. These cables are used to mount various diverse instruments and a lighting system. Some instruments require two cables, as the instrument consists of two parts, i.e. beater and sound-maker. The lighting system consists of a small mirror ball, with a high powered LED light illuminating it. When the light system by the vibrations of the cable is set into motion, the system sends showers of light fragments through out the room. The visitors themselves experience the same space as a listening room, by making their own way through the installation, and make it a collaborative experience by plucking one or the other cable to set appropriate instruments into vibration which combines into a group artwork.
Performers: Art Clay & Public
Exhibition Space: Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, Germany
WARM@HOME (2002)
An interactive Video Installation for Two Performers and a House
(click to enlarge)warm@home embraces a new family type of life one might remember as having or having lost or having found or having wish(ed) for. Theoretically it makes use of human existence, as incorporated by Joseph Beuys, as extreme warmth. It all concludes that in regard of humanity, its temperature must be somewhere above zero degrees. An attempt to persuade one might read as follows: close eyes: dream or/and remember: first touch?/ first kiss?/ first belief? etc.etc.etc. open eyes: answer please, your spiritual temperature is/was? the installation (title: home) regards human warmth as in need of kindle/ firewood/ lovegas/ ignition (and eventual space travel). the performance (title: @) regards human contact as in need of bodytouch/ eyetouch/ mindtouch and attempts (we+you) this. The video part of the installation (title: warm) regards human growth as to be fed by warmed thoughts/ warmed goods and even extreme cases in/of lov(ly)ing. For example, the following words have high human heat value insulated by each other simultaneously and/or adjacently: soft, lovely, glowing. these examples describing three letter aspect combinations of the human alphabet. that we inherit at birthing. Please include (in) the personal pronouns such as: you, me, us, them, him, her. Also, remember movement and contact is/are essential to human (our) development. the following words have low human heat values: bomb, bombed, bombing etc.etc.etc.
Performer: Art Clay & Franziska Martinsen
Exhibition Space: Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna Austria
UNSER GARTEN (2000)
A Collaborative Project for Multimedia and a Sandbox
(click to enlarge)Our Garden is a crossover project that combines visual arts, photography, performance and sound art. It is an ‘open to anyone’ project, which as a social networking project not only blurs the boundaries between the various art genre, but one which reaches out over local borders and connects artists of different countries in a structured and social environment. The project consists of a large framed in area filled with black sand set in a gallery setting. A series of computer controlled projectors and a multi channeled audio system are used to deliver content. Over two-hundred interested artists sent material to be used as media content in the project. Fourteen artists were selected and were involved as “gardeners”. A table for slide making and audio looping formed the center of interaction between the art from all the participants and the curator’s tending the gardens growth. The task was a basic one: to plant objects in bare sand and bring it into blooming using media. Art as a garden: daily growth in a state of permanent change.
Performers: Art Clay & Gäste
Exhibition Space: Ausstellungsraum 54, Basle, Switzerland