INTERACTIVE 05 - Art Toronto Partnership 2005

 

A celebration of interactive culture throuhgout the public spaces of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for the Toronto International Art Fair (Art Toronto)- November 3-7, 2005

 

On Saturday, November 5th, TIAF's Speaker Forum will host 'Art of the Interactive Experience" with some of the most provocative minds in the field, including moderator Vera Frenkel (Multi-Disciplinary Artist), Sara Diamond (President of OCAD), Thom Sokoloski (Multi-Disciplinary Artist), Alain Thibault (Director of Elektra) and Andrée Duchaine (Director of Groupe Molior)

 

The popularity of high profile public media arts festivals, such as the Cyberarts Festival in Boston, Art Futura in Barcelona, Elektra in Montreal, Transmediale in Berlin, International Society of Electronic Arts 2006 (ISEA) in San José and ARS Electronica in Linz, Austria, have catapulted the interactive arts into the mainstream of contemporary art experience.

 

The organizers and initiators of I-05 were independent curator and art consultant, Clara Hargittay and Thom Sokoloski, independent artist, curator and producer. They both have over twenty years of proven experience in the arts in Canada and are well known in their respective fields as creators of high profile projects.

 

In a collaboration between the I-05 artists, galleries and Sokoloski, the architectural spaces of the MTCC have been poetically transformed into a spectacle of interactivity. At once theatrical and participatory, the combination of still and moving images, sensory interventions, and sound punctuate the navigational flow of visitors with engaging interactive encounters as they find their way to the TIAF exhibition hall. Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art has installed a series of computer stations for visitors to access the extensive Canadian Art Database Project which includes 32,000+ images; 200+ media clips; 1,000+ texts, 700+ artists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 - 'Perversely Interactive System' by Lynn Hughes and Simon Laroche

Perversely Interactive System is a large-scale video/ sound installation that puts the spectator-participant into relation with a virtual other whose image (s)he controls through a custom wireless biofeedback handset. The person on the screen is controlled by the body movements of the participant which sets up a kind of symmetry and intimacy even though the virtual other remains fugitive and difficult to control.

Courtesy of Elektra Festival / www.elektrafestival.ca

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2 - 'Tribute to a Barking Dog' / 'Hommage au Chien qui Jappe'* by Jean-Pierre Gauthier

Photo courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

Sobey Art Award 2004 winner Jean-Pierre Gauthier creates a kinetic, interactive sculpture which incorporates elements of a drum kit, automated by electronic motors, light sensors and motion detectors. In his work, everyday objects are transformedinto haunting, humorous and challenging combinations.

Courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art / www.mocca.ca

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3 - 'As Yet Untitled' by Max Dean

2005 Gershon Iskowitz Award winner Max Dean constructs situations in which the viewer is given the opportunity to make a choice to intervene, in some cases to stop an action from taking place. The viewer's actions create consequences, and in many instances, the work's success is contingent on this participatory engagement. As Yet Untitled, a robotic work, three times per minute, puts the choice of the archiving or shredding of a found family photograph in the hands and mind of the viewer.Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery / www.susanhobbs.com

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4 - 'Hum (2)' by Marla Hlady

Above the viewers are mounted a cluster of ceiling fans on which each one has an affixed speaker. As one fan starts to spin, a movement-activated switch starts the audio playing a simple, endlessly looped hummed melody. While the fan continues to spin multiple fans start spinning adding multiple melodies to create a chorus. The spinning speakers give the audio a tremolo effect (like the spinning speakers of the Hammond organ) producing an often hypnotic and meditative experience.

Courtesy of Jessica Bradley Art + Projects / www.jessicabradleyartprojects.com

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5 - 'Taken' by David Rokeby

Taken is a video surveillance installation that tracks the movements of visitors within the gallery space and incorporates this information into its visual display. A recipient of the 2002 Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts, Rokeby creates work that uses technology to reflect on human issues such as surveillance and artificial intelligence.

Courtesy of InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre / www.interaccess.org

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6 - 'Swansong' by The Centre of Attention (Pierre Coinde, Gary O'Dwyer)

Public space meets the chapel of rest in a work that offers the audience an opportunity to rehearse one's own funeral: participants select a song; they then lay on a plinth, performing death, while the song is web-streamed. Formally, the work reverses the viewer/art-object dynamic, while allowing a statement to be generated and examined by the audience itself.Courtesy of Mercer Union, A Centre for Contemporary Art / www.mercerunion.org

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 7 - 'Interjecting Sections' by Darren Copeland

With this work of sound art, Darren Copeland provides visitors with an original experience that evokes a musical dialogue between the trains and people that flow through and past the covered pedestrian bridge at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Locomotive history and memory merge to create a sonic interaction between space, place and participant.

Courtesy of New Adventures in Sound Art / www.naisa.ca

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8 - 'Where are you? (T'es où?)' by Luc Courchesne

This work is an immersive existence simulator and telepresence apparatus in which visitors are invited to fly, as in dreams, through a world of many dimensions, between past and future, light and darkness, the public and private. This immersive display uses a custom designed 'panascopic' projector above, that projects in real time a rendering of the entire horizon onto the hemispheric screen in which up to eight people can participate.

Courtesy of La Société des arts technologiques [SAT] / www.sat.qc.ca

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9 - 'SEED' by Napoleon Brousseau, Galen Scorer and Gabe Sawhney

SEED explores the convergence of rich media and wireless technology in the creation of a collaborative and evolving work of art. Through sound and imagery users create and populate a forest together. By dialing a particular number, each audience member will be given a "seed" to grow using the keypads of their cell phones. With each punch of the keypad, audiences have the ability to grow their seeds, choose the type of trees they want to plant, and change their texture and colour.

The Seed Collective / http://www.seedcollective.net

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10 - 'New Creatures' by Kevin Krivel and David Warne

New Creatures is the final work in a series of new media installations that playfully harness surveillance technology to create imagery that is evocative of ancient tales of metamorphosis. The artwork captures and analyzes a viewer's image and turns them into digital bodies that stretch, twist and fly.

Courtesy of Trinity Square Video / www.trinitysquarevideo.com

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11 - '[murmur]' by Shawn Micallef, Gabe Sawhney and James Roussel

[murmur] is an interventionist public archival audio project that collects and curates historic and everyday stories set in specific locations. At each of these locations, a [murmur] sign with a telephone number and location code signals that stories are available. By using a mobile phone, users are able to listen to a story of that place.

Courtesy of [murmur] / www.murmurtoronto.ca

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12 - 'Hybrid Space' programming by the 7a*11d Collective

The 7a*11d International Biennial of Performance Art brings artists who redefine performance in relation to time, space, the performer's body and the relationship between artist and audience. 7a*11d will present a series of performance art works which integrate themselves into the public spaces of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The focus is on artists who have chosen performance art as a primary medium to create and communicate provocative new images and new perspectives.

Courtesy of 7a*11d International Performance / www.7a-11d.ca

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