Bridging Boundaries: Where Physical meets Virtual (2011)

Bridging Boundaries: Where Physical meets Virtual (2011)
Rhizome Curated Exhibition by fforster

As technology advances, the idea of the virtual and physical worlds being separate entities is becoming indistinct. This exhibition challenges the concepts of the two worlds and displays six pieces of art that cross these increasingly blurred boundaries.

While Chris Sugrue’s ‘Delicate Boundaries’ explores the visual aspect of crossing the boundaries, creating digital creatures that move through the computer screen becoming a part of the physical world, Aleksandar Macasev’s ‘Kontrola’ aimed to create a virus which could affect the virtual and the physical. Macasev claimed that the common denominator between a computer and a human is language, and he therefore made the linguistic Kontrola virus. Both of these artists’s works show how vague the separation of the two worlds is becoming, depicting how easy it is for something virtual to affect the physical too.

Both Tom Forkin, in ‘Body Extension’, and Martin John Callanan, in ‘Location of I’, have placed themselves into the virtual world. Through copying a part of himself onto the internet Forkin conceptually creates a body extension in the ‘other world’ he seems to straddle the line becoming both virtual and physical. Callanan also straddles the line, calling himself the ‘absolute citizen’, through uploading his physical location onto the internet continuously he has made himself a digital citizen. However through bridging this divide he has made himself vulnerable. Callanan’s piece describes not only how simple it is to cross that barrier, but the effects crossing the barrier has. Callanan seems isolated whether in a city like Dublin or desert in Morocco due to his marker being the only marker, making him seem the only citizen.

The final two pieces in the exhibition show examples of ways in which the virtual and the physical worlds interact but how influential the divide still is. In Pappenheimer’s piece ‘Breath on me’ he created an exhibition that was both online and physical. Online viewers had control of the webcams that were set up in the physical space, above each webcam was fixed a fan and in effect the online participants could ‘breath’, or fan air, at the physical visitors within the installation. Through this Pappenheimer enables communication, in the form of breath, between the two worlds. Along a similar idea, Karolina Sobecka’s piece ‘Sniff’ challenges the boundary of the two worlds through the ability for the human form to communicate with the digital animal. However the boundary is still evident due to the dog’s inability to cross through the wall it is projected onto. Although the dog still forms a relationship with the human, the divide is still apparent and tangible.

Netaudio London

Sonification of You will be installed at Netaudio London 2008.

Netaudio’08 will take place from 22nd to 25th October 2008 at Shunt Lounge, London SE1. It will celebrate the creative output of networked musicians and online communities with talks, workshops, showcases and performances.

Netaudio’08 will play host to a broad range of live musical acts all the way from well established musicians through to undiscovered new talent – the only criteria is that they sound good and that they engage via the medium of the Internet. Musically Netaudio’08 will provide a programme spanning genres and cultural boundaries and embracing the widest possible selection of sounds humming through the Internet.

Within the conference side of the festival, Netaudio’08 will explore the creative practice and merit of digital networking tools. Workshops will share knowledge about music production and digital distribution whilst presentations will take a lead in the discussion of altered user behavior in the networked society – both aiming to engage the thought provoking process of music production, distribution and consumption in an age of networked communication.

8th Pixxelpoint, Slovenia

Pixxelpoint, Nova Gorica, Slovenia

Sonification of You (Sonifikacija tebe / Sonificazione di te) will be at 8th Pixxelpoint Festival, Nova Gorica, Slovenia, in December 2007. I shall also be giving an artist’s talk. [PDF: Festival Program< , includes translation of Sonification of You into both Slovenian and Italian] I’ve been invited to stay in Slovenia 5-15 December 2007.

Pixxelpoint is one of the most successful and renowned festivals of new media art in Slovenia and also abroad. Its purpose is firstly, to bring the information technology and new media art closer to the general public, and secondly, to raise awareness about a different potential to use computer among the young. In previous editions the festival had a big media response and over 3000 visitors visited it every year, so this is a challenge for the organizers to further expand it and trespass the boundaries of the gallery space which has become too small for all the projects which are to be carried out. The exhibition of new media art projects, as the central event of the festival will be mounted at City Gallery Nova Gorica but will include also other locations (Mostovna, Kulturni dom Gorica (Italy) and DAMS (Italy)), besides we will also include a symposium on the given topic, as well as workshops run by guest-lecturers. Accompanying activities will include numerous concerts by well-known music performers.

Curated by Narvika Bovcon and Aleš Vaupotič, organized by the city of Nova Gorica.

Information curated by David Battle

Curated by David Battle, A Rhizome Exhibit featuring both I Wanted to See All of the News From Today and Location of I:

More so than ever the significance of information has been at a high. The transitions from analog to digital and written to electronic media are finished. Since the beginning of what people call the information age the ways in which information is used, collected, and made available have continued to push the boundaries of what some thought would never be possible—or rather, have never thought possible. The use of information continues to change daily. These four artists just take part in the spread of concepts that will, like everything in the information age, become commonplace as people are exposed.

[also at IABlog]

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