If you live in Belgium or if you happen to be in The Netherlands, France or Germany anywhere near Liege/Luik/Lüttich, then you might want to drop by BIP2010, the 7th International Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts because it is one of the most exciting events i've seen in a while (and yes, i'm aware i write that a lot but i always mean it you see.) This year's theme is (Out of) Control. It oscillates between the cheerful and the somber, between the mundane and the extraordinary. I'll get back to you with a proper report but i couldn't help singling out a quirky series of photos i discovered at the biennial.

Thomas Mailaender, Acrobatic Squad, 2004

As The Acrobatic Squad demonstrates, Thomas Lailaender has a soft spot for the absurd. He shot a special motorcycle unit of the Préfecture de Police de Paris in full acrobatic mode as they were practicing their hobby at the Bourget military base.

Thomas Mailaender, Acrobatic Squad, 2004

BIP2010, the 7th International Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts takes place all over the city of Liege until April 24, 2010.

A few weeks ago, and against my better judgment, i stopped by Decode: Digital Design Sensations at the Victoria and Albert in London. The exhibition showcases recent developments in digital and interactive design through three themes: Code, Interactivity and Network.

I have nothing particularly flattering to write about the exhibition. I wish i had done like Furtherfield and visited the Digital Pioneers exhibition instead. The exhibition takes place at the V&A as well but doesn't benefit from as much advertising as Decode.

In theory, Decode looks like a very glam affair. In reality, it has a bit of a fancy thrift shop feeling with all the works crammed in a confined and confused space. I was left in shock when i saw how little space each work had to breathe while all around me a group of school girls were laughing their way from one work to another, frantically waving their arms/head/some bathroom appliances in all directions in order to trigger some kind of reaction... sorry "interaction" from the works. The code section of the show wasn't a much more pleasant experience. I had to fight my way through a narrow corridor jam packed with people taking pictures or videos of the strikingly beautiful works on screen. I'm glad the exhibition is such a success. I'd even go as far as confessing that i'm perversely happy that interaction and digital design are being thrown in the direction of the broad public in such an informal way.

Damn! it's not like me to bad-blog an exhibition like that. Maybe i was not the right audience for that kind of exhibition but then maybe i am because some artists whose work i admire are participating to the show. Stanza is one of them.

As his bio says, Stanza is an expert in arts technology, CCTV, online networks, touch screens, environmental sensors, and interactive artworks. Recurring themes throughout his career include, the urban landscape, surveillance culture and alienation in the city.

Sensity on a round globe display tested at County Hall London (Live data on globe 2006). Image copyright stanza

His artworks have won prestigious awards and have been exhibited all over the world, from the Venice Biennale to the Tate Britain, from the State Museum in Novorsibirsk to the Biennale of Sydney. I blogged so often about his work, it's quite embarrassing. Stanza is exhibiting Sensity at Decode. Some 20 custom made environmental sensors units are distributed in the V & A Porter gallery and around the city of London. They measure, light, noise, sound, humidity, and temperature. The data is turned into a online real time visualisation of the space for everyone, whether they are gallery visitors or city planners, to see and ponder on. Sensity V & A opens up a discourse about networks and surveillance technologies and questioning the social political fabric of the landscape around us (more details and pictures about the V&A version.)

The Decode exhibition wasn't that bad. After all, it gave me an excuse as good as any other to blog this little interview with Stanza about his work.

How visible are the sensors in the city?

Actually I don't advertise where they are exactly, they are too expensive to loose. The visability is virtual and presented via its GPS location. All the data is presented online via XML feeds that are open source.

Do you have to keep them hidden lest they get stolen or damaged? How do you select the location of the sensors?

The location is based on the network and the distance apart one can place them so that they still transmit and send data. But you're right, having them stolen is a big issue since I cannot afford replacement

Image copyright stanza

Do you need a special authorization to place the sensors and collect the data?

In theory yes, in practice, I don't. There are more complex issues about security of space and surveillance. In fact because of the potential of this project for larger scale urban monitoring, noise and pollution monitoring in real time I am surprised I haven't been approached to develop this on a larger scale.

By measuring all sorts of physical data the sensors reveal also some social aspects and variables of the environment. The text that presents Sensity states that "The output from the sensors display the "emotional" state of the city".
So what is the emotional state of the city?

The condition of change of time represents the emotional state as measured by the varying sensors.

Image copyright stanza

Do you perceive patterns according to the time of the day for example?

The patterns and shapes in the visualisation are what is being affected by the real time environmental conditions.

Well the time of day affects the patterns that are relayed to the screen.

The sensors have time stamp, light, temperature, humidity, GPS, noise and sounder

What can the 'general public learn from Sensity?

I want the public to explore new ways of thinking about interaction within public space and how this affects the socialization of space. The project uses environmental monitoring technologies and security based technologies, to question audiences experiences of the event and space and gather data inside the space.

The project also focuses on the micro-incidents of change, the vibrations and sounds of the using these wireless sensor based technologies.

Imagine walking out the door, and knowing every single action, movement, sound, micro movement, pulse, and thread of information is being tracked, monitored, stored, analyzed, interpreted, and logged. The world we will live in seems to be a much bigger brother than the Orwellian vision, its the mother of big brother.

The data is also used to create visualizations in an open source environment. Other online users can also re- interpret the data and interrogate the various sensors in the network as this is open sourced as well (xml streams).

How about you?

What I have learnt from mixing the cities and creating mash-ups online with the data from various city set is that there is a new space, a 4^th space, a new world of possibilities.

These works are focused on the wider picture of city experiences which are being played out in real time. This sort of experience of multi nodes and multi threaded spaces, demands a refined gathering of data, a sensitive accumulation which can then lead to some kind of modeling and visualization. [audible and visual (mils)-representation] of the social network as it exists and is impacted upon.

Image copyright stanza

Do you navigate cities differently after you have submitted them to Sensity?

Within this project no.....and it's a good question. However within a project like soundcities.com the experience and the relationship to place is different. Soundcities is my online open source database of city sounds from around the world, that can be listened to, used in performances on laptops, or played on mobiles via wireless networks.

The project soundcities is completely made up of found sounds and soundscapes from the thousands of samples I collected.

The sounds of cities also give clues to the emotional and responsive way we interact with our cities. Cities all have specific identities, and found sound can give us clues to the people that inhabit these spaces, as well as provoking us and stimulating our senses in a musical way. Within soundcities the aim is to create an online aural experience that evokes place, both as literal description but also developed musical composition. The sounds of cities evoke memories. So this idea of assent gathering of sounds creates a different feeling that the gathering of data.

With sensity although we are the body in the data space; we again control it but because its on a micro scale it's harder to relate to. That's why a project like Sensity is so important.

You've installed Sensity in many cities around the world. How is the V&A one different?/

The way Sensity is exhibited can be scaled up and this depends really on the commitment of the host organization.

I now have several version of this artwork.

A local version can be made and then projected and also shown online. I have already made versions for several cities. In this case I test and deploy my sensors and make the visualisation.

Making it real time so sensor data isn't recorded but real time. This involves set up of technology, adding some code to router, using my sensors, using my computers, set up of the sensors in the correct location, programming them, replacing batteries and care for the duration of the show and insurance. In this case I test and deploy my sensors and make the visualisation and leave the sensors and the computers running all the time.

How it looks in the gallery or the actual displays ie, what it is seen by the audience. It can be experienced on plasma screens, projected or shown on 3d globes. Once the visualisation is made there are a numbers of ways to present it.

The Decode show is a much longer term real time colloborative deployment of my two networks in the gallery and across the city. I can monitor all the sensors remotely tell the gallery to change batteries, etc. The issue is that the V & A and their technical team has to be able to support the technical needs of the work.

What becomes of the data once the show is over?

None of the data as the system is set up is archived.... it's all real time. I do plan to allow the database to have a history but this now requires further funding and development.

Thanks Stanza!

All text copyright stanza.

Pictures i took in the Decode exhibition.

Decode: Digital Design Sensations continues until the 11 April 2010 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Data Flow: v. 2: Visualizing Information in Graphic Design, edited by Robert Klanten, Nicolas Bourquin, Sven Ehmann and Thibaud Tissot (Available on Amazon USA and UK.)

Publisher Die Gestalten Verlag says: Data Flow 2 expands the definition of contemporary information graphics. The book features new possibilities for diagrams, maps, and charts. It investigates the visual and intuitive presentation of processes, data, and information. Concrete examples of research and art projects as well as commercial work illuminate how techniques such as simplification, abstraction, metaphor, and dramatization function.

The book also includes interviews with experts such as The New York Times's Steve Duenes, Infosthetics's Andrew Vande Moere, Visualcomplexity's Manuel Lima, ART+COM's Joachim Sauter, and passionate cartographer Menno-Jan Kraak as well as text features by Johannes Schardt about the challenges in creating effective information graphics and about the relationship between complexity, clarity, content, and innovation.

Christoph Niemann, I hate mosquitoes

If you still had any doubt that data were the sexiest thing this side of the Milky Way, Data Flow 2 might very well make you change your mind. The book was published only 18 months after its predecessor and i hope the publishers make an habit of it. It is jam-packed with innovative, smart and gripping examples of the way designers, programmers and artist are giving sense and beauty to the humongous mass of data that is overflowing our 'digital age'. I guess i'm sounding over-enthusiastic here but truth is i am genuinely thrilled with this volume.

Xavier Barrade, Models

Because information visualization is a flourishing, manifold discipline, the editors of the book have interviewed a series of experts who, each according to their own competence, shed light on a particular aspect of information visualization. Infosthetics's Andrew Vande Moere and Visualcomplexity's Manuel Lima aptly open the round of interviews. Bloggers are the ones who made the broad audience aware of the existence and wonders of data aesthetics after all. Steve Duenes, graphics director for The New York Times, talks about how the work at his department relies on a mix of journalistic research and pure design. Cartographer Menno-Jan Kraak explains why map matter so much that they can inform and influence important decisions. ART+COM's Joachim Sauter gives his view on the difference between operating information in a design context and using information for for art's sake.

Here's a fraction of the works i discovered in Data Flow 2:

In the chapter dedicated to Dataprocess...

Tim Knowles, Windwalks, a series of walks directed by the ever-whimsical wind using an array of mechanisms, filmed and plotted by GPS.

The Seed, by John Kelly, a two-minute animated voyage through nature's life cycle, following the tribulations of an apple seed.

The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

In the Datablocks section

Aleatory Compositions is a book of sheet music written by people who had no idea they were composing. Hoagy Houghton asked people to fill a blank grid with 7 colours, shading the squares as they pleased. A colour scale translated their visual composition into musical notes.

In Datacurves

Visible Sound, by SOUNDS.BUTTER, is the prototype of a sewing machine that converts sound input into a sound wave of thread on textile.

Rose of Jericho, by Martin Kim Luge, is a series of data sculptures that team up a mySpace.com friend and with a rose of Jericho plant (also called Resurrection plant) in an attempt to convey a general feeling of the friend's mood. This desert flower can survive very long times without water. When watered, the branches rapidly spread out. In Luge's project, the water supply for the rose is controlled by the friend's mood as described on mySpace. A computer program reads the mood adjective at the friend's account in realtime. The adjective is compared against a database to map a numerical value to the emotion. This value defines the duration of the water pump controlled by a microcontroller, which is irrigating the rose of jericho. The higher the value the more water is arriving to the plant.

Spamghetto, by [todo.to.it], is a spam-based wallpaper created using a generative software and based on up to 2000 different junk-mail subjects scraped from Gmail mailboxes.

One of the works of Datamaps

Tim Schwartz's Geohistoriography exhibits the way the United States view the world. The data was collected from the New York Times, namely the number of articles written about a certain country for each year, starting in 1851. The result of his investigation shows how America's perspective changed over the last 150 years. The last few decades, for example, have shifted the red button focus from the Iron Curtain to the Islamic states.

And finally some Dataesthetic

Michael Najjar's High Altitude is a series of virtual romantic landscapes in which cliff, slopes and rock formations represent the performance charts of indices of the world's leading stock exchange over the past 20 - 30 years.

French, Spanish, and German editions of Data Flow 2 will be available End of March 2010.

Image on the homepage: Diana Cooper, Orange Alert, 2005.

Related: Visualizing: tracing an aesthetics of data, Data Visualization panel at OFFF, Lisbon, Conflux 2008: notes from the panel Cartography of Protest and Social Changes.
Book review: Tactile - High Touch Visuals.

Very lucky me happened to be in Tokyo during the Japan Media Arts festival. Cheerful, a bit chaotic and very laid-back, the festival had much to tickle a European amateur of media art.

The National Art Center where the exhibition was held

First of all, the festival doesn't just celebrates media arts, it also highlights creative works of entertainment, animation, and manga which gives the feeling that media art is part of a broader contemporary culture than it is in Europe. On the other hand, i didn't see as many socially-engaged artworks media art works as one can find in similar exhibitions in both Europe and the U.S. of A. I'm all for activism and hacktivism but you know what? i didn't expect to find conscience-wrecking works in the exhibition anyway, so its scarce presence didn't spoil my dessert.

Unlike most similar events, Japan Media Arts festival displays not only the awarded works but also the ones that have been recommended by the jury.

Finally, there was light instead of the usual crepuscular atmosphere in the exhibition space. I don't understand why media art exhibitions are so desperate to have you nose-dive into darkness and gloominess.

David Bowen's Growth Modeling Device scooped up the grand prize in the Art Division category. The system attempts to replicate the daily growth of an onion plant.

While lasers scan the onion from one of three angles, a fuse deposition modeler creates a plastic model based on the information collected. The device repeats this process every twenty-four hours scanning from a different angle. After a new model is produced the system advances a conveyor approx. 17 inches so the cycle can repeat. The result is a series of white plastic models illustrating a simple organic phenomenon from different angles.

Vernissage tv interviewed Bowen about his installation.

One of my favourite works in the exhibition was Braun Tube Jazz Band. Wada Ei lined up tv screens and used them as percussion instruments, reinventing thus the purpose and characteristics of a media we thought we knew so well. The artist explains: One day, a spectacular picture popped up in my brain. It was an image of abandoned electrical appliances being played as musical instruments on a street in a town. Using this image as a starting point, I set up the same number of tube televisions and PC-controlled video decks correspond to the number of notes in a musical scale to create a set of gamelan percussion instruments. Tapping TV tubes produces primitive and cosmic electrical music.

(there's another video over here)

I was glad to finally get to see Lawrence Malstaf's Nemo Observatorium which i had missed at ars electronica 2009 where it baffled the audience by receiving the Golden Nica of Interactive Art.

People were forming a long queue to be allowed to enter the transparent cylinder and sit on its chair, right in the eye of the upcoming storm... Once you've press the start button, a huge volume of foam polystyrene beads swirl frantically against the internal wall of the cylinder. All hell breaks loose around you and after a first moment of shock, the experience turn out to be soothing and perfectly safe.

Among the recommendations of the jury:

Leçons de Français (French Lessons), a very charming French lesson by Vanessa Louzon who cut and rearranged images from a French lesson book that belonged to her mother and a communist-era atlas of Europe that belonged to her father, and constructed a video narrative using language lesson clichés to tell about modern life, displacement, and failed dreams (movie.)

Common Flowers, by Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel (of the Biopresence fame), reverts the blue "Moondust" carnation -the first commercially available and purely aesthetic GM product- back to its natural white state using open-source DIY bio-bending methods and procedures.

BOX 2.0, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Alkatraz Gallery

Box 2.0, by
Nika Oblak & Primoz Novak, is a bright orange rubber LCD monitor showing clones of the artists duo trapped inside it. As they bump and hit on the walls surrounding them in 2D video, pneumatic system and software transfer their movements into actual 3D space as if their kicks could actually enable them to escape the tv set (video.)

Bearings Glocken, by Kawase Kohske, is a musical instrument that performs a glockenspiel using steel ball for bearings, said to be the world's most perfect sphere on earth.

Photo on the homepage: Flood Helmet Gallery from the series Objects for Our Sick Planet, by ONG Kian-Peng.

All my pictures from the Japan Media Arts Festival.

GaMe!, a group exhibition you can check out until March 24 at the [DAM] gallery in Berlin, presents positions by six international artists on the subject of computer games and electronic toys.

Todd Deutsch, a.k.a. KillerJ00, 2005

The show is rather small but it covers a surprisingly large spectrum of game art practices. More importantly, GaMe! is one of those rare exhibitions about game art which favours the artistic approach over the more accessible attractions of playfulness and interactivity.

You'll understand immediately my point when i tell you that one of the games on show is all about mania, melancholia, and the creative process. The unassuming 8-bit graphics and very straightforward gameplay of Jason Rohrer's Gravitation offers a striking contrast to the poignant challenge that the player has to face: find the right balance -if there's one- between family life and creative achievement.

Jason Rohrer, Gravitation, 2008, computer game

In order to get the stars (your own projects to develop) from the sky, you have to play ball with your kid to expand your view of a screen (aka the outside world) which is mostly dark at the beginning of the game. The higher you can jump, the more you get to discover the screen/outside world. The music closely adapts to your choices. Becoming either more cheerful as your vision of the world expands or colder as it shrinks back to black. As destructoid explains: Grabbing a star causes it to fall back to your home area (home life), where it becomes a difficult-to-move stone with a timer on it. Pushing a star stone into a fireplace earns you the amount of points still remaining on the stone (the quality of an idea deteriorates over time). Getting more than one star at once causes the star stones to build up, separating you from your son, whom you ironically need to play with in order to get more stars. Ultimately, the game shows that pursuing creative exploits both requires and alienates the people you love. Conversely, dedicating all your attention to your child means that your creative fervor will burn out. The morale of the story hurts but the work -which btw is autobiographical- was a great discovery for me.

Gravitation is available as a free download.

Mark Essen, The Thrill of Combat, 2009, computer game

The Thrill of Combat, by Mark Essen, is much more fast-paced but not less atypical.

The player (or players) controls organ hunters aboard a helicopter with the goal to harvest a number of hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, pancreata, and intestines. The organs don't just lie around for you. You have to kill their owner first from the helicopter. When you've massacred enough people, you jump in parachute and start to open the corpses and remove the organs you need to complete your list of vital body parts. While keeping tabs on the helicopter. The Thrill of Combat is heartless, cynical, and submersed into a seducing block-coloured urban landscape.

I was more familiar with the work of the other artists invited to participate to the show:
Joan Leandre is showing the film In the name of Kernel Series - Lonely Record Sessions, Tale of Tales presents the eerie and incredibly alluring game The Graveyard, Todd Deutsch's Gamers ignore you superbly while France Cadet brought her wild robotic hunting trophies, the rocking Gaude Mihi and a series of serigraphs detailing her 'genetically-modified' robots.

France Cadet, Panthera Pardus, series Hunting Trophies, 2008

GaMe! is open until March 24 at the [DAM] gallery in Berlin.

Another game art exhibition currently open is Playlist - Playing Games, Music, Art at Laboral in Gijón, Spain.

Related entries: France Cadet solo show at the gallery numeriscausa in Paris; Homo Ludens Ludens - A conversation with curator Daphne Dragona; Book: Trigger Happy for free, etc.

World of Giving, by Jeffrey Inaba and C-Lab*
(available on Amazon USA and UK.)

Lars Müller Publishers says: In this important exploration of the sentiments of our time, World of Giving explains the motivations for why we give and offers examples of individuals, foundations, governments, multinationals and NGOs helping others. Jeffrey Inaba and C-Lab provide an understanding of the process of working toward a greater good by describing actions that build bridges between goodwill and need, intention and realization. The authors show that gifts form the foundation of all kinds of human interaction with each one establishing a unique relationship between giver and receiver. They illustrate that the gift too alters in meaning and value, detailing how it transforms as it circulates through what are at times a complex series of transactions.

In place of the pursuit of personal wealth, World of Giving presents a mindset that is based on generosity and revolves around the gesture of giving. The book argues that giving is a powerful act that gains social momentum, benefiting not just the immediate recipient but typically others as well. Acknowledging that each of us is inclined to give, this illuminating publication reveals how a beneficent deed contributes to an environment of increasing generosity in addition to enhancing the capabilities of its recipient. As a shared value, giving can grow to be a meaningful collective force that affects the world in surprising ways.

Read also the introduction to the book by Jeffrey Inaba.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie donated $ 1 million to aid Haiti quake relief, Swiss supermarket Migros bestows 0.5 % of its retail and 1 % of its wholesale turnover to art and culture as part of a programme called Migros Culture Percentage.

On the other end of the generosity spectrum, Italy's billionaire prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, had proposed to put up in three of his own houses some of the thousands of people made homeless by the earthquake that shake Abruzzo in April last year. The offer has often been regarded as nothing more than a PR move (rumours has it that he never even respected his promise.)

The book World of Giving navigates the world of generosity with brio and erudition. Whether they are good old christian charity, sincere kindness or corporate philanthropy, acts of generosity are everywhere you'd care to look.

From the velvet monkey that puts its own life at risk by emitting calls to warn other troop members of the approaching predator to the welfare pioneers of the Calvinist Dutch Republic. From the rise of US philanthropy to Communism's re-conceptualization of the act of giving, etc. World of Giving explores generosity through times and cultures.

Philosopher, and historian David Hume described men as being fundamentally altruistic. Philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith believed that men are motivated chiefly by self-interest, even when they display some generosity. World of Giving has a more balanced approach. Far from being a mere attempt to substitute Gordon Gekko's 'Greed is good' with a call for openhandedness, the book uncovers the mechanisms and strategies of giving. And its economics, as anyone involved in thebusiness of giving away free digital goods can confirm.

Jeffrey Inaba / INABA / C-Lab, Donor Hall (detail), 2007

* i can't recommend enough their Volume magazine.

Related: Open City: Designing Coexistence - Part 3, Reciprocity.

"Current medical advances in the area of infertility medicine and neonatology have made total ectogenesis (the gestation of a human being entirely outside the body of a human female) less a figment of the imagination of science fiction writers ... and more a realistic possibility for those living in the not so distant future."

S Gelfand, and J R Shook, Ectogenesis - Artificial Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction, New York: Editions Rodopi B. V., 2006, p2

A few weeks ago, Adam Smith presented at the RCA architecture interim show in London a project called Golden Orb Spider Farm which speculates on a plausible near future where we become reliant on synthetic organs to replace body parts, in particular the womb.

The project is based on research into how spider silk might become a material of choice for prototyping scaffolds on which to grow human tissue. Research in tissue engineering has indeed found that silk is a better substance than polymeric materials to construct such 'scaffolds'. Fully functioning hearts and wombs have already been grown artificially on silk scaffolds. For example, Canadian company Nexus Biotechnologies is manufacturing Biosteel(TM), a high-strength synthetic spider silk from the milk of genetically modified goats. The fiber material is allowing for the development of new products in a wide range of fields - from bulletproof vests to scaffolds for artificial human organs - including wombs.

Advances in reproductive science and medicine would enable the complete gestation of a human embryo outside a woman's body, within the next 5-10 years. In the ethically complex scenario where humans are brought to life in artificial wombs, one can imagine that mother would want to demonstrate maximum love and commitment by providing the the finest and most luxurious womb they could afford. Rather than the synthetic unglamorous Biosteel, mothers might look for rarer, naturally produced alternatives. Golden Orb spider silk, the most precious silk in the world, might answer their wishes.

Last year already, a large and rare textile was made entirely of Madagascan Golden Orb spiders silk - demonstrating its inherent strength, beauty and value.

Golden Orb spider farm speculates that employers may want to persuade their high calibre employees to delay having children in return for hi-tech fertility insurance. Female employees would receive glass Gold Orb spider farms in which to house and breed spiders. The women would feed spiders with flies every day. Once a month, a silking machine would extract several metres from each spider in the farm. In due course this gift is passed on to the child that emerges from the silky womb. Once used, this object might take on a new role of a family heirloom.

Golden Orb Spider Farm is part of a wider architectural project entitled Genatorium - Breeding Ground for the Risk Averse. The project explores societies' tendency to implement anything that makes things safer and more egalitarian - sometimes with unintended consequences. It is based on a wide amount of research encompassing fertility technologies, the gender pay gap, health-and-safety culture and social disparity in London.

Adam Smith is a final year MA architecture student at the Architectural Design Studio 4 of the Royal College of Art in London. Tutored by Gerrard O'Carroll, Nicola Koller and Rosy Head, ADS4 researches emerging social trends and technologies to create scenarios which allow for critique and speculation.

All images courtesy Adam Smith.

Previously: Art and Medicine at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (Part 1).

Patricia Piccinini, Science Story, Part I: Laboratory Procedures, 2002

Toward Eternal Life and Love, the last section of the exhibition Medicine and Art, attempts to bring light on the latest developments in biotechnology, cybernetics and neuroscience, but also on the vital issues they entail. Can our definition of life remain forever unchallenged? Is the human commitment to reproduce going to stay the same? Are there limits to the way we will be able to modify and 'enhance' our body in the future? Will we ever reach our dreams of immortality? How much can medical and scientific developments impact the way we love and live?

Exhibition view. Image Mori Art Museum

The latest advancements of science are presented into a historical perspective, with the proponent of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, as the key protagonist of this section of the exhibition. His theories about evolution through natural selection were evidenced in his 1859 essay On the Origin of Species. The book stirred much controversy but Darwin's ideas on evolution became accepted by the scientific community and much of the general public in his lifetime. As the current debate around creationism demonstrates, Darwin's theory of evolution still haven't met unanimity. A Creation museum in Kentucky, US even brandishes the moto "Life doesn't evolve around Darwin."

The Mori Art Center had brought to Tokyo many original illustrations related to Darwin's research on animals and men but also ivory phrenological heads, some of the original metal plates used by Francis Crick and James D. Watson to build a double helix model of DNA and determine its molecular structure, etc.

Broca-type goniometer for measuring the angles of the face, France, 1865-1875. Credits: Science Museum London

One of the most puzzling artifacts for me was this goniometer. Invented in the early 1860s by surgeon and anthropologist Paul Broca, the goniometer was designed to measure the 'Jacquart' angle of the face. "Scientifical" measurements of the face were used by anthropologists in the 1800s to classify human types and races, in the mistaken belief that some human groups were more evolved than others. Human types were then placed on an evolutionary ladder, inevitably with Europeans at the top.

The artworks that illustrate the Toward Eternal Life and Love chapter range from the very pop to the acutely grave.

Patricia Piccinini, Game Boys Advanced, 2002 (detail.) Image Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. Copyright Patricia Piccinini

And Patricia Piccinini's Game Boys Advanced are quietly disturbing. A couple of boys absorbed into a handheld video game shouldn't raise an eyebrow. Except that on closer inspection, the kids appear to be twins with prematurely wrinkled, slack skin.

The brothers are not really twins, they are clones. The boys' accelerated decrepitude is a nods to reports that Dolly the sheep was ageing at a more rapid rate than would be expected. The scientists responsible for her seeing the light argued that the reason or Dolly's arthritis might have been the sedentary existence she led in laboratory rather than any genetic problems resulting from the cloning process.

Gilles Barbier, L'Hospice (The Nursing Home), 2002. Exhibition view (image Mori Art Museum)

Gilles Barbier, L'Hospice (The Nursing Home), 2002. Detail

When American superheroes get too shabby, they are sent to vegetate in Gilles Barbier's Nursing Home. The work refers quite straightforwardly to our societies' obsession with eternal youth. Should medical research be geared towards the fight against the loss of youthfulness? Or isn't medicine's most noble mission to provide us with better lives? Will our society ever revert to respecting old age?

Sense, Annie Cattrell, 2000. Detail. Photo Peter Cattrell

Annie Cattrell used FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) brain scanning techniques to create Sense, a fascinating series of sculptures that map the activity patterns of the brain as it responds to touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste. Scans of a subject's brain using each of the senses were produced with FMRI. These scans were then converted into 3D structures of amber resin using a rapid-prototyping process.

Tokyo art beat has an interview with Oron Catts. The Victimless Leather -which he developed together with Ionat Zurr- was one of the highlights of Toward Eternal Life and Love.

Special mention to the fantastic coin-operated dispenser of plastic body parts which you can find inside the exhibition shop:

The exhibition Medicine and Art runs until February 28, 2010 at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.

My first stop in Tokyo, once i had dropped my suitcase at the hotel was for the Mori Art Museum. The Roppongi art space has opened Medicine and Art, an exhibition which, despite its grandiloquent sub-title "Imagining the Future for Art and Love", was every bit as brilliant as i had hoped.

Prosthetics, anatomical drawings by Michelangelo, an ornate amputation saw from ca. 1650, disturbing prints by Patricia Piccinini, diagrams by René Descartes, Tibetan anatomical figures, a painting by Damien Hirst, etc. Some 150 medical artifacts from the Wellcome Collection in London and works of old Japanese and contemporary art are exhibited side by side. Without any hierarchy nor anxiety. Each and everyone of them offers the most seducing spectacle about life.

Paolo Mascagni, Anatomical Illustration. Credit: Wellcome Library, London

From ancient times humans have sought to unravel the secret mechanisms of the body, developing in the process a wealth of medical expertise. At the same time we have seen our own bodies as vessels for the representation of ideals of beauty, and long sought to depict our bodies in paintings and drawings.

The exhibition is bold, provoking and it has the merit of bringing together oriental medicine and our own western idea of the art and science of healing.

The first part of the exhibition is all about Discovering the Inner World of the Body: How did people around the world first acquire understanding of the mechanisms of the human body and the vast world it contains? The first section of the exhibition answers that question by tracing various scientific developments through a vast array of artefacts. One of the highlights of the show is a series of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. For the Renaissance man, understanding the human body was a first step towards uncovering the mysteries of the outside world. Besides, his work epitomizes the spirit of the Tokyo exhibition. Da Vinci, better than anyone, managed to combine a scientific and an artistic approach to the study of the human body.

Exhibition view (image Mori Art Museum) featuring Bal Yiluo, Recycling, 2009

Iron model of the joints in a human skeleton, Italy, 1570-1700. Credit: Science Museum, London

This 30-cm tall, fully articulated iron manikin is thought to have been used at mediacal schools during the 16th and 17th centuries for demonstrating the structure of joints and for teaching joint-related how to treat joint-related diseases.

Maruyama Okyo, Skeleton Performing Zazen on Waves, c.1787 (Daijoji Temple, Hyogo, Japan)

The second section, Fighting Against Death and Disease covers the way people have tried to fight against death and disease through the ages. In addition to presenting the history of medicine, pharmaceuticals, artificial limbs and organs, life sciences and scientific technology, this section poses philosophical questions about the nature of life and death with the various memento mori works.

Alvin Zafra, Argument from Nowhere, 2000

One of the most striking pieces in the show is Alvin Zafra's 'Argument from Nowhere'. It doesn't look like anything else but an abstract painting. Until you read the notice and see the video of how the artwork came to life. Zafra vigorously grounded a human skull to powder against a seven-meter long panel of sandpaper, leaving a soft gradient of grey monotones. The operation took 14 days. Zafra said his motivation was "to paint a beautiful image of death."

Tetsuya NOGUCHI, "Target Marks 1580" and "Target Marks 1610", 2009

Tetsuya Noguchi crafted two figures. The first one represents a young warrior wearing armor in the style of the Warring States period, the second sculpture represents the same man, only he is thirty years older and lives therefore in the Azuchi-Momoyama period.

The armour worn by the figures is ambivalent. Made to protect the body and relieve warriors's fear of death and misery, this armour also features several targets that invites death or injury to the body.

Ernst Pohl, Omniskop X-ray apparatus, 1910. Science Museum, London

In the early 1920's, Ernst Pohl created the ground-breaking Omniscope. This X-ray machine could be rotated completely around the patient which greatly enhanced the diagnostic and therapeutic potential. By the end of World War II, around 400 units had been manufactured and delivered throughout Europe, the USA, Japan and the Soviet Union (via.)

Set of fifty artificial eyes, Liverpool, England, 1900-1940

Damien Hirst, Surgical Procedure (Maia), 2007

Kamata Keishu, Surgery for Breast Cancer, 1851. Credit: Wellcome Library, London

In 1851, Kamata Keishu compiled a ten-volume medical treatise called Geka kihai in which he described and illustrated the surgical techniques pioneered by his teacher, surgeon, Hanaoka Seishu. The illustration above shows the excision of a cancerous growth from a woman's breast, an operation which Hanaoka Seishu first carried out in 1804 using general anesthetic.

Custom built iron lung, Cardiff, Wales, 1941-1950

The picture above shows the ancestor of respiratory nasal masks. The patient with respiratory problems was encased in the wooden box up to their neck. The air pressure inside the box was alternated by operating the giant leather bellows. This caused the lungs to inflate and deflate so the person could breathe. During black outs or period of unstable electrical power supply, nurses were said o have operated it by pushing the bellows with their hands.

To be continued...

The exhibition Medicine and Art runs until February 28, 2010 at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.

This is not going to be my favourite project by Wafaa Bilal (and you know how much i like his work) but if tattoo is what it take to get people's attention on the issue then he has my full support.

Whether he becomes the target of a paintball machine that could be triggered by any keyboard across the world or whether he hacks his way into an al-Qaida game to play the role of a suicide bomber, Bilal knows better than many artists or activists how to drag people out of what he calls "their comfort zone" and make them face issues they might otherwise not be willing to engage with.

His latest project addresses the issue of the invisibility of Iraqi civilian deaths during the war.

Wafaa Bilal's brother Haji was killed by a missile at a checkpoint in their hometown of Kufa, Iraq in 2004. Bilal feels the pain of both American and Iraqi families who've lost loved ones in the war, but the deaths of Iraqis like his brother are largely invisible to the American public.

...and Counting addresses this double standard as Bilal submits his body to a 24-hour live performance. His back will be tattooed with a borderless map of Iraq covered with one dot for each Iraqi and American casualty near the cities where they fell. The 5,000 dead American soldiers are represented by red dots (permanent visible ink), and the 100,000 Iraqi casualties are represented by dots of green UV ink. During the performance people from all walks of life read off the names of the dead.

The performance will take place at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York on March 8th at 8pm. Bilal is asking visitors to donate $1 which will go to the group Rally for Iraq, to fund scholarships for Americans and Iraqis who lost parents in the war.

Previously: Positions in Flux - Panel 1: Art goes politics - Wafaa Bilal, Book Review - Shoot An Iraqi, Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun and A few words with Wafaa Bilal.
Related entry: Baghdad Calling: Reports from Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iraq.

Here's something for your eyes to munch on if you're Berlin bound this month:

Armin Linke's Future Archaeologies photographs explore how some contemporary places and building structures can be regarded as 'archaeologies of the future', modern artefacts subject to slow-fading decay. This snapshot of a progress that never took the road it was supposed to follow triggers the question: 'How long will it be before our own idea of modernity gets stranded in a dead end?'

An exhibition particularly interesting to visit in the light of last week's Transmediale conference whose theme was "Futurity Now".

To visit the gallery you have to climb up the first floor, the stairs have that pleasant and old fashioned smell of wax and spicy perfume for gentlemen. Open the door to the luminous white gallery and meet...

a display of tired stuffed apes at the Zoological Museum in Florence,

Museum of Zoology and Natural History, La Specola, Firenze, Italy, 2008

the interior of the MIR space-station simulator in Moscow,

Star City ZPK, MIR Simulator, Moscow, Russia, 1998

a modernist monument in Kosturnica, Macedonia,

Kosturnica, Monument to Local Victims in WWII, Prilep, Macedonia, 2009

a bedsheet acting as a cinema screen in a village somewhere in China,

Cinema Screen, Guiyu China, 2005

the illegal Israeli settlement Har Homa in the West Bank,

Homat Shmuel - Har Homa Settlement Bethlehem, West Bank, 2007

"These are real Science Fiction scenarios, constructed man-made utopias, hurling their absurdities at the viewer," says the press release for the show. The most literal example comes from the Shrine of the Book, a wing of The Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Built in the '50s, its dome looks like the ideal set for science fiction movies.

Frederick Kiesler, Armand Bartos, Israel Museum, The Shrine of the Book, Jerusalem, Israel, 2008

Linke's photographs poetically document globalization effects and complex interrelations of the idea of modernity with inherent structures of violence and colonialism.

The gallery also screens a video in 3D. Nuclear Voyage travels inside inactive nuclear power stations and waste sites. The slow and ordinary gestures that the last people working there perform are at odds with the James Bond-like world of wonder that nuclear used to embody.

Nuclear Voyage, 2008, 3D film, blue-ray disc, sound: Renato Rinaldi, 10:22 min, Ed.: 1/5 + 2AP (film still)

The choice of filming and screening using 3-D technology nails the idea even further. The 3D aesthetics and the god-awful glasses one has to wear to follow the movie offer an ironic comment on the renewed hype regarding spatial viewing of images (i just read that LG predicts that 30 million people will buy 3-D TV sets by 2012), the spectacle of which had already been celebrated as photography's great promise in the 19th century with the advent of stereoscopy.

Nuclear Voyage, 2008

Future Archaeologies runs at the at Klosterfelde Gallery in Berlin until March 6, 2010.

A show you don't want to miss if you're in Berlin before the end of April. Just make sure you avoid weekend afternoons or it's Long Queue party for you!

At first glance Walton Ford's animal watercolour paintings look like harmless illustrations made by French and British colonial-era illustrators. Until you look closer and realize how cruel the world depicted is.

Walton Ford, An Encounter with Du Chaillu, 2009. © Walton Ford

A beautiful panther has escaped from the zoo and villagers are trying to kill it, an Orangutan is serenely strangling a parrot, a gorilla commits suicide using the gun of a hunter it has just killed, a (now extinct) elephant bird of Madagascar stands distressingly on one leg as the other is impeded by the rope that a hunter has tied around its body and beak. It's animal kingdom at its fiercest. You almost wish you didn't have to witness any of those scenes but then the images are so beautiful, you proceed to the next one.

Walton Ford, Madagascar, 2002. Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery

Walton Ford, Chingado, 1998. © Walton Ford, Courtesy Paul Kasmin Gallery

The lions, birds, wolves, primates and other 'wildlife' animals never come on their own. They are accompanied by symbols, allusions and clues alluding to texts from colonial literature, folktales, travel guides or even classics from American literature. In Ford's watercolours, natural history meets political commentary in an erudite and visually spectacular way. The images satirize colonialism, politics, slavery, natural science, and man's impact on nature.

Walton Ford, The Sensorium, 2003. © Walton Ford

"There is so much science and popular interest regarding animals - like the Animal Planet shows and field research," Ford told The Local. "But that's of no interest to me. I don't care how gorillas behave in nature, but how people could come up with something like King Kong - how they could develop that kind of fear and terror, and we could come to accept him as an icon of nature."

Ford's images are accompanied by a brief text which sometimes reveal the meaning or story behind the painting and sometimes only deepens its mystery. Example:

Walton Ford, Thurneysser's Demon, 2008. Courtesy the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery

Thurneysser presented also to Basel, his native city, a large elk, which had been given to him by Prince Radziwil; but the good Baselers looed upon the strange animal as a most dangerous demon, and a pious old woman finally rid the town of the dreaded beast by feeding it with an apple stuck full of broken needles. The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals by E.P. Evans, 1906.

Walton Ford, Scipio and the Bear, 2007. Courtesy the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery

Walton Ford, Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London - 3 December 1830, 2009. © Walton Ford

Walton Ford, Baba - B.G., 1997. © Walton Ford, Courtesy Paul Kasmin Gallery

Ford is fairly popular and well-known in the United States but less so in Europe. Walton Ford - Bestiarium which opened recently at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin is his first solo exhibition in Europe.

All my pictures.

Whitehot Magazine has an interview with Walton Ford. Video portrait of the artist.

Walton Ford - Bestiarium runs until April 24, 2010 at the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin.

Acoustic Botany, by David Benqué, extracts Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering from the usual context of health care, food and environment and examines instead the role they could play in the sphere of culture and entertainment.

Acoustic Botany, the project for a "genetically engineered sound garden", seeks to find new ways of imagining the nature of tomorrow (will we still call it 'nature'?), where engineered species of plants, insects and animals interact within a composed ecosystem and create a new form of musical performance.

Benqué visited the Plant Sciences department in Cambridge, and researched botany in his own to find existing species from which to extrapolate, and the ideas for this work in progress developed from there. A few examples:

String Nut Tree

String Nut contains inside a fibrous pulp, which is eaten away by bugs engineered to chew in rhythm. They enter the fruit by the holes in the shell and remain inside until they have eating everything but the few stronger fibers. Left standing inside an empty shell, the fibers are like resonating strings. It should take a couple of days until the remaining strings finally snap and release the nut to the ground, where the seed can sprout.

Giant Speaker Lilly

Giant Speaker Lily is inspired by an actual species. The flower at the center of the 3 meter leaf captures bugs to coat them in pollen for 24 hours before it dies. During that time, the plant amplifies the vibrations of the bug through a membrane tensed over the leaf, becoming a giant monotone speaker.

Popping Pod Fruit

The Popping Pod Fruit is made from little capsules which fill with air and bacteria as they mature. When ready, the seed is dispersed by the explosion of the capsule. The popping season could be a carefully orchestrated over 2 months with periods of activity more intense than others.

I discovered Acoustic Botany at the Design Interactions work in progress show, Royal College of Art, London. I'm looking forward to see how his ideas will grow until the Summer show at the RCA: "This is indeed one of the projects I will be developing for the final show," explains Benqué. "I aim to make it more of an experience, with sound and bigger models, to engage the audience more directly. I would also like to have a small book with diagrams and illustrations, going into more detail about the different species, as well as the ecosystem that ties them together."

The designer imagines that the soundtrack would be more composed and harmonic than the nature sounds we know, but it wouldn't be as controlled as 'music' either because of the unknown factors that plant growth almost inevitably brings.

All images courtesy David Benqué.

Also part of the show were The Gesundheit Radio and Crowbot Jenny.

Justin Lui trained as an architect before earning an MFA degree from the UCLA Design | Media Arts in Los Angeles where i met him last Spring. He also has experience in web design, DJing and music production. He's so versatile, i wouldn't know whether i should define him as an interaction designer, media artist or architect. It probably doesn't really matter. Justin Lui is developing programmed and interactive spaces that act at the scale of the spectator's body. He is also part of Defectikons, a team of media artists with whom he has co-created media installations and music projects.

When we first talked to each other he had just dismantled the amazing Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS, a storefront installation facilitated by UCLA Architecture & Urban Design plus UCLA Design | Media Arts, which was built into the wall of the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions gallery on Hollywood Blvd's 'Walk Of Fame'. The illuminated prototype glows in intensity according to the motion of passersby. On the street side, LCDs were displaying animated text remembering exhibitions culled from the 30-year history of LACE, while LCDs on the interior of the gallery showed text derived from artist Douglas McCulloh's '60,000 Photographs in Hollywood' describing characters encountered on Hollywood Blvd. Later on, when Justin told me about Animate Field, his MFA Thesis Project at UCLA Design | Media Arts, i thought it might be a good opportunity to interview him.

For your work Animate Field, a field of lights in direct contact with visitors' skin, you used fiber-optic filaments. What are the new materials and technologies that you find most exciting and with which you'd like to work if money was no obstacle?

I think the first thing I would do with an expanded budget would be to expand the scale...! A project like Animate Field could really benefit from being enlarged to a more expansive field, to get closer to the infinite Ganzfeld-like spatial condition that James Turrell - for example - has in some of his work.

I'd also love to continue using the digital fabrication tools that were used in Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS, technologies such as CNC milling, vacuum-forming and 3D printing; all of which don't come cheaply. Also, I've recently begun experimenting with bend sensors, so that might come into my work at some point. The opposite of a bend sensor is arguably muscle wire (shape memory alloy), which is a material I'd also like to explore.

So if money were no object, I would essentially put the money towards making my work more immersive, more formally engaging, and more tactile.

Animate Field from Justin Lui on Vimeo.

Animate Field requires the involvement of the body far more than your other installations. Is it something you are keen to explore even further?
Did you find that the audience was comfortable with the idea of walking through hanging bits of fiber-optic filaments? Or are people still slightly repelled and worried by a direct contact with technology?

Yeah, the direct bodily engagement of that piece was a bit of a left turn compared to my previous work, but I also see it as a continuation of earlier investigations. For example, Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS (and some prior projects) used bodily presence as a catalyst for interaction, but Animate Field added to that by incorporating the issue of direct contact with the body. This sense of touch is something I'd like to develop in future work, possibly with things like muscle wire and bend sensors.

About participation with Animate Field, I noticed that audiences were evenly split: older people tended to stay outside the cloud of fibers, while younger people (say, in their 20's and younger) were much more open to wading into the fibers. The choice between observing from outside the thicket of fibers and participating inside it probably wasn't about the fear vs. embrace of technology, as the fibers themselves looked more like a natural plant-like substance than something mechanical and intimidating. Instead, I just chalk it up to the participant's sense curiosity vs. personal inhibition. What happened often was that one brave soul would enter the fiber cloud, play with the fibers, then others would follow inside - like a chain reaction. Sometimes it became a shared experience between strangers. I didn't really anticipate this sort of sociability in Animate Field, but it was gratifying to see.

Another thing I observed was that the fibers would collect and stick together into branching structures after several days of having people pass through and comb them with their hands. At first I tried to 'correct' this by going in to the thicket to untangle the fibers, but I soon decided to let these forms accumulate because I realized that the installation wasn't a defined discrete form (as designers are accustomed to creating), but instead was a set of conditions for a formal structure to emerge over time. It was a 'socially generative' formal mechanism as opposed to an explicitly designed form.

Water Clouds of Light

Water Clouds of Light looks like a remarkably simple installation. Some water jugs, a few light bulbs. Is the work really as straight-forward as i just made it sound?

Yes, I wanted it to have a clear and direct reading. It's an unfussy installation; simple, serene, but not static as the lights 'breathe' in and out in a way that is life-like.

Compared to my other work, I think Water Clouds of Light stands apart in a couple of ways: it has a stated allusion to the natural world, and it runs autonomously as opposed to being specifically interactive (which some people found refreshing considering the contemporary disposition for interactivity and responsiveness).

Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS

Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS

Many of the works in your portfolio have been devised for safe, closed exhibition spaces. Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS, however, was built into the exterior wall of an art gallery right on the famous Hollywood Blvd. Are you more comfortable in closed exhibition spaces or do you rather welcome the challenge of installing your work in contexts where you have less control over its surrounding (light, public, weather, etc)?

I see the value in both situations. A lot of my installations are dependent on the control of environment-related factors like light levels and physical access, so I like the degree of control in a gallery. But I also find that public spaces present an opportunity to engage a larger audience; one that isn't pre-disposed to look for art, which means there's a greater potential to surprise people (provided the piece has the conceptual clarity required to connect them in a meaningful way).

Since it was a double-sided installation, OPENINGS actually addressed audiences in both types of situations; gallery visitors inside Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE gallery), and passersby on Hollywood Blvd. The materials and construction were almost identical on both sides of the glass wall, but the experience on either side was different because the LCD data content was different for each side, and the sensors of the lighting-interaction system were exclusively aimed at the street to capture the movement of pedestrians.

There were some serious physical challenges on the exterior side, as you hinted at. With the security gate that rolled down every night, it was a tight and narrow space to build in to. Also, that area of Hollywood is a little bit seedy, so vandalism was always a concern. We actually had one of our ultra-sonic sensors stolen - twice!

Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS (building process)

What have you learnt from the Superficial Superglow: OPENINGS experience?

That project was a great experience for me and my partners: Andrea Boeck and Jihyun Kim. The three of us formed a well-balanced and even-tempered team. I learned several things, including the value of maintaining that balance and good temper, and the importance of visual and conceptual clarity in a publicly-sited interactive piece. That was probably the most important thing, that interactive installations generally need to be designed and calibrated to express clearly to the participants what the interaction is; what they are being prompted to do, what the rewards or results are, etc. Clear communication, essentially.

Since the project was in a public space with a constant supply of test subjects, we were able to do some on-site testing and observe passersby triggering and relating to the interaction system. Consequently, we were able to tune the sensing, lighting and display systems to try to maximize the project's ability to communicate and interact.

I also gained some valuable experience with managing and executing a fairly large interactive installation involving multiple technical systems and multiple outside parties (various UCLA departments, the gallery, suppliers, and so on).

Who are the artists or architects who inspire you today?

Creators of otherworldly atmospheres like Olafur Eliasson, James Turrell... Tara Donovan for the accumulative formal quality in her work... United Visual Artists, whose work represents to me an ideal marriage between behavioral electronics, physical space and people... realities:united, who also do great work combining electronic interaction and animation with physical architecture... Toyo Ito's dynamic installations and structures from the late 1980's and 1990's, which pioneered a lot of the qualities I see in dynamic and interactive architecture today... Toshio Iwai, Tokujin Yoshioka, Scott Snibbe, and more.

You are also part of DEFECTIKONS::, a collective creating works that blend the architecture, design, visual art and sound disciplines. Can you tell me a few words about your role in DEFECTIKONS?

The Defectikons are a group of three partners; Chris McCullough and Shaheen Seth. I was one of two DJs, and I also shared the work on installation design and assembly, graphic design and music production. What happened fairly often was that I would work iteratively, refining things towards an end while the other two partners often created great beginnings.

Our media-installation projects were really fun and great to learn from. For us, they were a happy combination of architecture with DJing and video, like humble precursors to the Daft Punk pyramid.

At this point our creative energy has been refocused into a musical band, with the addition of two other members.

Speak & Spoil: The Ambiguity of Language

What have you been doing since I met you last Spring in Los Angeles?
Any project you could talk about?

I graduated from UCLA Design | Media Arts a few months ago, and have been working on various endeavors: teaching graphic design, web design, and physical computing; making project submissions with my OPENINGS partners; and showing Water Clouds of Light at a couple of light-art exhibitions. Next I'll be working with Variate Labs and Miles Kemp (who co-wrote the book Interactive Architecture) to develop next-generation interfaces and interactive spatial architecture projects.

Thanks Justin!

Who would have thought i'd end up blogging about a splatter movie on wmmna? I'm not talking about any horror flick, i'm talking "gay-porn zombie film", a genre which i assume is under-represented in contemporary art. Written and directed by Bruce LaBruce and starring porn actor François Sagat, LA Zombie is on view at the Peres Projects gallery in Berlin, along with a dozen new works on canvas.

Bruce LaBruce, LA Zombie 10, 2010. Painting - Silkscreen on Canvas

It was a bit of a hard core spectacle for someone like me who has no interest nor experience in the genre(s). I'm still wondering how i'll manage to convey the happiness and sense of beauty that the film gave me. There's something respectable about a porn movie that you watch inside a renowned art gallery. You might be shocked but you're never ashamed. Bruce Labruce's other queer cinema horror film Otto; or Up With Dead People debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the artist has contributed to magazines such as Vice, Index, and BlackBook, he also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Even his main actor, a muscular porn star recognizable by a tattoo designed to give the illusion of a hairy scalp has gained some gravitas when he was asked by fashion designer Bernhard Willhelm to model the 2007 Spring Summer collection. The film itself was inspired by The Gleaners and I by experimental French film maker Agnès Varda.

Outside view of the gallery

View of the exhibition space (image Peres Projects)

I doubt LaBruce bothers much about making you and me and other art lovers comfortable. Just like Murakami delights in selling his art in both prestigious art galleries and shops merchandising fugly brown monogram bags, LaBruce doesn't seem too eager to drawing a line between art and porn. He told Salon: "All of my work has been about that line. You can situate yourself on either side of the line without really altering the work itself. I could take a picture for Honcho magazine, but can take the same image and put it in a frame in an art gallery, and it becomes art. For me that speaks to the arbitrary nature of those labels." A soft-core version of L.A. Zombie will tour film festivals this year. You can expect to find the hard-core DVD gracing the shelves of your favourite sex shop in the spring.

Bruce LaBruce, LA ZOMBIE 05, 2010. Painting - Silkscreen on Canvas

LA Zombie was shot in Los Angeles. Guerrilla-style. With almost no budget. The main protagonist rises from the sea, with as much clout and allure as Ursula Andress herself in that famous Bond scene. He's a zombie or maybe he's just a bit deranged and fancies himself as an undead creature. He sports canine teeth and is dressed like a homeless. Good looking young guys get killed or die in accidents. He finds them, gives them the fuck of life right into their wound, they open their eyes. They have become zombie too and lead the life of tramps around LA. People don't seem to even notice their presence.

The trailer:

Bruce Labruce LA Zombie: The Movie That Would Not Die runs at Peres Projects in Berlin until April 24, 2010.