ISEA 2015

ART AND
DISRUPTION

21 S T I N T E R N AT I O N A L S Y M P O S I U M O N E L E C T R O N I C A RT

VA N C O U V E R , C A N A D A

Edited by Kate Armstrong

1
Edited by Kate Armstrong
Design: Milène Vallin

Printed and bound in Canada

This book can be downloaded as

a .pdf or ordered in print at
http://isea2015.org/publication

© New Forms Art Press, artists and writers

1255 West Pender Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V6E 2V1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing

in Publication

International Symposium on Electronic Art

(21st : 2015 : Vancouver, B.C.)
ISEA 2015 disruption artistic program /
edited by Kate Armstrong.

Catalogue published in conjunction with

the 21st International Symposium on Electronic
Art held in Vancouver, Canada, from August 15 to
19, 2015. Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-9878354-1-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-0-9878354-2-0 (pdf)

1. Computer art--Exhibitions. 2. Art and

technology--Exhibitions. I. Armstrong, Kate,
1971-, editor II. Vancouver Art Gallery, host
institution III. Title. IV. Title: 2015 disruption
artistic program. V. Title: Disruption artistic
program.

N7433.8.I58 2015 776 C2015-904663-7

C2015-904664-5
Acknowledgments

This incredible event could not have happened without our amazing team
and our many collaborators. First, a thank you to Thecla Schiphorst and
Philippe Pasquier, the Symposium Directors of ISEA2015 who have closely
worked with us throughout the long process of developing the artistic pro-
gram for ISEA.
Thanks to our many programming partners. A big thanks to everyone
at the Vancouver Art Gallery, especially Wade Thomas, Diana Freundl, Debra
Zhou, Jennifer Wheeler, Jennifer Sorko, and Sunny Kooner, and the spectac-
ular Boca Del Lupo team – Jay Dodge, Carey Dodge, and Sherry Yoon – who
have been such a pleasure to collaborate with during this project. Enormous
thanks to Hanna Cho, Gregory Dreicer, Paul Carr, Myles Constable, and the
whole Museum of Vancouver team, and to our outstanding partners at the
H.R. Macmillan Space Centre.
Thanks to all our guest curators whose work and ideas are catalogued
in this publication, and to the organizations that supported them, includ-
ing grunt gallery, VIVO, Western Front, New Media Gallery, WAAP, MUTEK,
OCAD, 221A, MUME, Metacreation Lab, Algorave, and Vancouver New
Music. Special thanks to New Forms, which has been a pivotal program-
ming and funding partner organization for ISEA2015.
We are indebted to Simon Fraser University for their support, especially
the School for the Contemporary Arts, the Faculty of Art, Communication
and Technology (FCAT), the School of Interactive Arts and Technology
(SIAT), the Woodward’s Cultural Unit, and SFU Galleries. Thanks to Lynne
Jamieson, Martin Gotfrit, Owen Underhill, Nik Williams-Walshe, Melanie
O’Brian, Amy Kazymerchyk, Ben Rogalsky, Stefan Smulovitz, Heather
Lamb, David Ship, Kate Stadel, Steve Hanna, Lynda Hewit, and to Paul
Zuurbier and the MITACS team. We are grateful for the energy contributed
to ISEA2015 overall by the many program chairs including Maria Fedorova,
Kristin Carlson, Megan te Boekhorst, Miles Thorogood, Mirjana Prpa, Robin
Kwiatkowski, Veronika Tzanikova, Victoria Moulder, Rachel Ward, Reese
Munteab, Carolina Bergonzoni, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, and Gabriela Aceves-
Sepulveda, and by the many volunteers who made the event possible.
 Thanks to Post Projects for their design development on ISEA2015,
and the many people who helped with the print, media and communications
including Maria Fedorova, Jordan Yerman, Kristin Trethewey, Theo Wong,
George Chaves, and most of all Milène Vallin who designed this book.
Thanks to our funders, the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of
Vancouver, Creative BC, the Province of BC and the BC Arts Council, the
Hamber Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
(SSHRC), the Institut Francais, the Consulat General de France a Vancouver,
the Instituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto, and the Goethe Institut.
Most of all, thanks to the artists for participating in ISEA2015.
And inally, we literally could not have done any of this without our stellar
production and technical team:
Kristina Fiedrich (Artistic Program Manager), Deborah Turnbull Tillman
(Exhibitions Production Manager), Elisha Burrows (ISEA2015 Technical
Director, Art Program), Emmy Willis (Videography), Matt Smith (ISEA2015
Technical Director, Vancouver Art Gallery), Steven Wong (ISEA2015
Technical Director, Vancouver Art Gallery), Carey Dodge and Jay Dodge
(Boca Del Lupo & Medialab, FUSE Producers, Vancouver Art Gallery), and
Colin Grifiths (ISEA2015 A/V Director). The incredible creativity and gener-
osity of this group has brought the whole machine together.

— Kate Armstrong and Malcolm Levy

Artistic Directors ISEA2015
15 ISEA I N T E R N AT I O N A L
138 5600 K
curated by Sarah Joyce

17 INTRODUCTION and Gordon Duggan

25 DISRUPTION
curated by Kate Armstrong 142 ALL IS HERE
FROM NOW ON
and Malcolm Levy Khan Lee with Holyhum

120
L I V E LY O B J E C T S
curated by Caroline Langill
144 QUOTING THE QUOTIDIAN
curated by Wil Aballe
and Lizzie Muller

150 ARCTICNOISE

136
BEYOND THE TREES: curated by Britt Gallpen
WA L L PA P E R S I N D I A L O G U E and Yasmin Nurming-Por
W I T H E M I LY C A R R

152
curated by Diana Freundl TOGGLE
and Caitlin Jones curated by Brian McBay

154
M A R AYA : S I S Y P H E A N C A R T
curated by Brian McBay
158 NEW TEXT:
L I T E R A RY A N D A R T I S T I C
197 PERFORMANCES
· Hakenai
E X P L O R AT I O N S I N T O · Emergence
W H AT I T M E A N S · Deepening Scenery
TO READ, WRITE, · Octophonic Soundscape
A N D C R E AT E Compositions
curated by Dene Grigar · Soundwalks
· MuseBot

174 SPOTTED SENTIENTS: · Information Erupts

D I S PAT C H E S F R O M into Perception
AN UNEVEN FRONTIER
curated by Elisa Ferrari
204 A L G O R AV E
curated by Philippe Pasquier

182
THE MUTEK CABARET
curated by Alain Mongeau
210 AV D I S R U P T I O N
curated by Philippe Pasquier

192
N E W F O R M S F E S T I VA L
curated by Scott Woodworth
217 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
ISEA International

ISEA International is pleased to present the 21st International Symposium on

Electronic Art –ISEA2015– in Vancouver this year. Since 1988 ISEA has been
situated at the global frontier of digital media, creating an open discourse
around electronic art, science, interdisciplinarity and culture.
In 1989 Tim Berners Lee sat down to begin the www, http and html
protocols for a barely understood internet. From speculations on the nature
of hypertext and notions of supreme multimedia at early ISEA symposia,
through to hybridized internet spaces in the mid 2000’s, academics and art-
ists - in many situations one and the same - have simultaneously developed
and explored the nature of interactivity. Our relationship to technology has
been scrutinized and extended through creativity and academic debate.
Such is the work presented at symposia and art events held annually, in cit-
ies from Utrecht to Dubai.
In an era where the term technology has received the preixes of eco,
nano and bio, the transitioned state of contemporary culture under the
impact of electronic media made it possible to hear casually in the halls of
ISEA2013 Sydney that culture had become electronic. It is in this hybrid
diversity of nomadic journeying, typical of contemporary culture, that ISEA
is so well located. Twenty years after Montreal hosted the sixth ISEA, the
event has returned to Canada –to be hosted by Simon Fraser University in
Vancouver– for the foremost iteration of what has become electronic heritage.

ISEA International Foundation Board

Peter Anders – Chair
Wim van der Plas – Treasurer
Bonnie Mitchell – Secretary
Paul Catanese
Ian Clothier
Sue Gollifer – ISEA International
Headquarters Director
12 I S E A 2015
Introduction
Kate Armstrong

As I write this, 186 forest ires are raging in the province of British Columbia and
the air in Vancouver is thick with yellow smoke. It is 35 degrees outside and
the silver city is an alien outpost against a gasoline sky. The ships, illed with
oil and plastic lawn furniture from Shenzhen, are using foghorns to navigate.
When we were initially conceiving Disruption as a theme for ISEA2015
I’d written that disruption conjures both blue sky and black smoke. Blue sky
with reference to the term used in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to indicate
the bold innovations and endless possibilities introduced by disruptive tech-
nologies. In that vision, blue sky is imaginative space, a notion of the beauti-
ful, limitless new: We as humans are poised at an historic intersection where
we will be able to use our comely machines to realize visionary ideas that will
change how we live and work. We are to be hopeful because we can change
anything if not everything, including the power structures that hold some of
us back. These technologies ultimately offer a broad redistribution of money,
time, resources. This blue sky, which will make all of us smarter and richer,
more relaxed, is possible because of youth and energy, hard work, luck, and
a 10x return to investors. Our persistent use of expensive handheld devices
will overturn a century of public sector atrophy. Our sparkling connectivity
will magically tidy up the cancer and dirty tricks that have produced and
upheld the contemporary system of economic inequality that surpasses
even the sick ratio of the robber barons.
More of today’s black smoke: 40% of senior citizens have student debt.
We pay Nestle the same amount of money for 1.5 litres of water as it pays
us for a million litres. In 2007 the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the
country’s wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%. Wall
Street was occupied but nothing happened. It is three months since Freddie
Gray was killed and Baltimore erupted, and three weeks since Senator
Clementa C. Pinckney and eight parishioners were shot at the Emanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, and no one is talking
about the nine black churches that have been burned down since. There are
1750 unresolved cases of missing First Nations women and girls in Canada.
In his recent encyclical - and on Twitter - Pope Francis wrote that the earth
looking more and more like “an immense pile of ilth.”

13
 Later today we will know the results of the Greek election in which the
nation must choose whether to accept a further round of draconian austerity
measures introduced by the European Union. The world watches to see what
will happen. Facebook is boiling with crowdfunding campaigns to save Greece,
support for the idea of debt forgiveness and a “New Deal”, and detailed break-
downs of what the beneits would be if Apple were to buy the country.
It is a strange time to be living. Gerardo Ceballos of the National
Autonomous University of Mexico recently published a study showing that
we are in the beginning of a sixth mass extinction of animal species on Earth.
According to the paper, the number of species that have gone extinct in the
last 100 years would have taken “anywhere from 800 to 10,000 years to dis-
appear otherwise.” In the Guardian, Stewart Lee suggests that it is now time
to “enjoy the spectacle of doom” since it is now too late to save the world.
Since Google recently released Deep Dream the dreams of our computers
are iniltrating my feeds. This morning I saw a visualization in which a com-
puter struggled hard to ind sense within a picture of Gary Busey, producing
a result as skillfully disintegrated as any medieval vision of hell.
When we began working with this theme of disruption almost two years
ago, we had conversations about whether the theme would seem dated by the
time the event arrived. We knew it was an overused, overdetermined word –
made supine by disruptive technology and the way you can “disrupt” anything.
We were drawn to it because of the connection the idea of disruption
has to artists and artistic methodologies. Artists anticipate the disruptions
that will be articulated in business a decade later. They critique the state of
things using methods they invent. We knew the idea would have resonance
with artists and with the ISEA community, and we wondered if it was going to
be broad enough to reach beyond, to other communities. We wondered if this
idea would still it in 2015 and if ISEA2015 could be illed with new energy that
might revive the international institution at a key juncture in its history.
We’d seen the larger art world resist and then inally succumb to the tidal
rise of digital. It speaks to the prescience of artists who have been working in
these areas historically but it also speaks to a world that is more luent in data,
in which technology and life are increasingly dificult to separate. Perhaps a
world that can recognize how ideas and forms instantiated through artistic
methods are integral to the formation of shared culture? More blue sky.

14 I S E A 2015
 As it turned out we were right that the idea found resonance. This artis-
tic program for ISEA is bigger than we ever anticipated, involving 160 artists
working globally. The art program was formed in local partnerships along-
side 1800 submissions, a number that dwarfs any previous record. Rather
than seeming dated, the idea of disruption seems more relevant than ever.
Not only in relation to the catastrophic global events that have happened
during project development but also in the way that disruptive technology
– that thing we were so skeptical about and so tired of two years ago – has
continued its own inexorable march forward and we are seeing the results
everywhere. Self-driving cars are here. Computers aren’t the only comput-
ers anymore. Through our workplaces, homes and sporting equipment we
are looded with actionable data. We can print chocolate and meat. These
effects stream in from every sector, spawning new works and new actions.
So if the impulse with ISEA2015 was to mark the proliferation of digital
aesthetics in culture and to observe the consequences of these effects and
the aesthetic, functional, social and political possibilities that arise from them
at this moment, then we can also now look back on the program that has
been formed – been formed, as stone is formed through slow but violent
geological processes that have their own logic and materiality and that are
beyond any one person’s control – and say that these artists are showing us
how art can be a powerful method of inquiry that is coming alive in a new way
during a period of great uncertainty. It is obvious to say that art can show
us different ways to look at things, or suggest different ways to be. But in
this moment this group of works offers a multivalent, cacophonous, roiling,
irreverent, glitchy, political, futuristic and perhaps even a hopeful fuck you to
things as they have been and are.

INTRODUCTION 15
16 I S E A 2015
Introduction
Malcolm Levy

While thematically there are numerous references to global disruptions hap-

pening within the works that make up the overall curatorial framework of
ISEA2015 (weather, disease, political, social and economic upheaval, etc),
as important to our vision for the exhibition was in creating a conversation
around the tools used in media art creation, and their historical importance
today in both media and the greater contemporary art spectrum. In my work I
often discuss that the object has in many circumstances become the medium
itself. By understanding the tools that are available today, their histories, and
considering them as instruments and objects themselves, as opposed to just
a part of the process, the disruptive inluences that these tools have, comes
into greater realization.
From an art historical perspective, the work in ISEA2015 covers a wide
spectrum of instruments for creation, both in the realms of visual, sonic,
robotics, media, net, and electronic arts. They look to older, yet extremely rel-
evant and useful apparatuses such as synthesizers, older operating systems,
earlier computers, hardware and projection devices, and invite a conversation
with the “new”. Whether that be drones, weather pattern machines, slow self-
ie’s, or glitch based processes using contemporary modalities, they all either
directly reference and/or use these older traditions. These instruments now
ind themselves situated as part of a longer and storied history. The research,
experimentation and artistic practice surrounding the body of work assem-
bled under the umbrella of the exhibition for ISEA2015, are situated in a com-
plex space that comprises histories of ilm, video, sound art, electronics, early
computational programming, and information systems. These histories create
the foundations of media art practices as we know them today. The founda-
tions of contemporary forms and ields such as glitch, 8-bit, machine vision,
software vision, generative art and augmented reality are part of a history that
goes back at least to the middle of the past century, and in some cases as far
back as the avant-garde movement of the 1920’s and 30’s. Today though, his-
tory has caught up with its self. Glitch art is now accepted as the norm, post
internet is used in the context of Kanye West, and different modalities and
object oriented ontologies involving media are found within contemporary art,
the creative spaces, and worlds far beyond.

17
 Today’s images and objects are not only part of this larger historical
trajectory, but importantly its one that has a storied tradition, yet was often
rejected and existed on the periphery of artistic practice or technological inno-
vation. Often this was due to the researchers involved in the work, or the net-
works / institutions that supported such. Often, they were seen as outside of
the system, whichever one it might have been. Interestingly, this trajectory also
gave the art more potential for growth due to the lack of pressures from either
the art world or the sciences with regard to the innovations happening within
the contexts of both these worlds.
In Disruption, the past is the present and the future enveloped in one.
ISEA2015 is an ecosystem where these instruments exist together as objects
and forms of the larger conversation. The drones of Wanner, the schematics of
Cirio, the recyclism of Gaulon, the code of Galanter, the chemicals of Klein, the
ilaments of Harrop, the objects of Stone, the tornadoes of Stern and Manning,
and the glitches of Menkman, Cates, Temkin, Miller, the lights of Artiicial, in
the creation of the works for the Resonance and Refraction, and elsewhere
(too many to name!) there are instruments of disruption all doing their part,
participating in this exhibition.
One interesting aspect to note is that from the 1930s to the 1950s a
very important yet discretely documented change occurred within media.
This change was brought about by the innovations in the area of amalgama-
tions of synthesis – whether related to waveform, frequency, visual, audio or
electronics – and their inluence on the modes of production of the majority
of modern technological equipment. Many aspects of this synthesis came
to bear on work that started to be created in the 1960s, and it is interesting
to note the similarities between this early upsurge of work and the current
wave today. During both these periods, emergent technologies were a way
of disrupting earlier categories of artistic practice. If one considers the entire
exhibition as a conversation around synthesis, this larger history can even be
further imagined.
In the introduction to Provocative Alloys – A Post-Media Reader, the
groundbreaking research project and subsequent text published through
Metamute, another important aspect to this conversation comes out: not
everything that falls within post-media, or even the processes of how machines
work, must be technological in nature.

18 I S E A 2015
 Much of the material that Guattari discussed as post-media was not
overtly technological and concerned how the question of subjectiication could
be worked out against the tendency of capitalism to produce restricted ver-
sions of this process. In other words, Guattari sought out opportunities for
‘new emancipatory social practices and above all alternative assemblages of
subjective production’ against capitalist tendencies to destroy.”[i]
The work can take any number of forms, both digital and analog, but most
importantly, at its root, the images that are created therein disrupt the status
quo. What might in fact be the case is that there is an entire lineage that is more
correctly, or alternatively discussed through these machines, speciically when
looking at their work in the context of the art practices that they are forming, By
calling them instruments we are acknowledging the capacity for performance,
recording, as objects, and as mediums unto themselves.
One of the main trajectories of this ISEA was that the artistic
vision really helped shape and lead the themes for the conference, and
therein create a feedback loop between the days at the symposium, the key-
notes, workshops, demos, and the evenings of openings and performances
surrounding. Emanating from these discussions, and over 200 works that
make up Disruption, these machines, both old and new, have been brought
into the centre of the discussion once again, as a medium and conversation
unto themselves.

[i] Provocative Alloys: A Post-Media Anthology, Edited by Clemens Apprich,

Josephine Berry Slater, Anthony Iles and Oliver Lerone Schultz.
Published in Association with Post-Media Lab Books, Winter 2013.

INTRODUCTION 19
DISRUPTION
Patrick Harrop
VO R T I C A L F I L A M E N T
Motors, Fishing Line (2012 - ongoing)

Vortical Filament is an electronic installation

inspired by the photographic series Geometrie
Experimental. The early scientiic photographer,
Etienne Jules Marey and Franz Melde’s famed
experimental device demonstrates standing
waves on a string. The work evokes the lost tradi-
tion of the Baroque Tornitori (the craft of turning).
Through the phenomenon of persistence of vision
and the natural oscillation of rotational ields, the
piece seeks to create a ield condition of immate-
Paula Gaetano Adi
rial and ghostly waveforms in constant search for and Gustavo Crembil
equilibrium within a seemingly unstable system.
Patrick Harrop is an artist, architect,
TZ’IJK
researcher and academic based in Montreal and Autonomous Robotic Agent (2013-2014)
Winnipeg. His artistic practice engages questions
of augmented materiality, the modulation of the Far from the utopias of smart, anthropomorphic
immaterial phenomena of light and sound through and responsive machines, and inspired by the
material agency. His practical and theoretical Maya’s creationist mythology, TZ’IJK is a blind,
research is in the philosophy of technology with deaf, and speechless autonomous robotic agent
a particular emphasis in electromechanical hack- made from mud. Drawn from the lessons of mes-
ing, digital fabrication and contemporary theory. tizaje, and motivated by Latin America’s anthro-
His work has been shown in Montreal, Shanghai, pophagic, cannibalistic, and hybrid nature, TZ’IJK
Berlin and Winnipeg. proposes an alternative and disruptive approach
to the development of embodied artiicial life forms
and advocates for the integration of high and low
technological materials, processes, and cultures.
Consisting of a large mud-covered sphere with an
internal robotic mechanism, TZ’IJK establishes a
non-reactive and unpredictable bodily interaction
with the viewers. This creates the emergence of a
new kind of synthetic agent that allows contradic-
tions and ambiguity, complicating the traditional
dichotomies of craft/technology, western/indige-
nous, modern/ traditional, global/ local, and devel-
oped/ undeveloped.
Argentine architect Gustavo Crembil’s prac-
tice draws from design, architecture, performance
art, and political activism. A former Fulbright scholar,

22 I S E A 2015
his work has been supported by PS1/Museum
of Modern Art (NYC), Telefonica Foundation, Electronic Disturbance Theatre
Unesco-Aschberg, ACADIA, Argentina’s National (Carmin Karasic, Brett Stalbaum,
Arts Fund and Antorchas Foundation. He is cur-
Ricardo Dominguez, Stefan Wray)
rently Assistant Professor at Rensselaer’s School
of Architecture. Paula Gaetano Adi is an Argentine FLOODNET
artist and researcher working in sculpture, perfor-
mance, and robotic agents. Exhibiting internation- Web (1998)
ally worldwide, she was granted honors includ-
ing First Prize VIDA 9.0, the “LIMBØ” award, the FloodNet is the irst global online political protest
Argentina’s National Endowment, among others. software that successfully implemented electronic
She is currently Assistant Professor at the Rhode civil disobedience, launching a new era of hacktiv-
Island School of Design. ism. FloodNet disrupted trafic to a speciic web
server and wrote messages to its error log, suc-
cessfully bringing attention to Chiapas, Mexico.
This irst FloodNet strike had over 8000 global
participants, and made history on June 10, 1998,
when the Mexican government implemented a
countermeasure that caused any browser running
FloodNet to crash. The Mexican countermeasure
shows that through popular electronic civil disobe-
dience, FloodNet participants forced the Mexican
government to acknowledge global Zapatista soli-
darity, making the work a historically signiicant
example of hacking for a political cause.
The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) is
a small group of art activists engaged in devel-
oping the theory and practice of Electronic Civil
Disobedience. The founding members are Ricardo
Dominguez, Carmin Karasic, Brett Stalbaum, and
Stefan Wray. EDT is recognized as one of the
first small autonomous groups working to pop-
ularize digital resistance, working at the inter-
sections of radical politics, global performance
art, and web design.

DISRUPTION 23
David Cotterrell Bjørn Erik Haugen
THE OSTRICH EFFECT B Y T H E ROA D
Custom IVR Call Centre Software Sculpture, Records (2015)
and Hardware (2013)

The Ostrich Effect is built using commercial auto- As a sculptural installation, By the Road takes up
mated call-centre servers, customising their IVR notions of detritus, nostalgia and liminal spaces.
(Interactive Voice Response) programs to broad- Vinyl records are placed in boxes, as though left
cast and handle telephone campaigns while pro- behind. The 8 soundtracks consist of the sound
gramming individual call centre systems to dial from car chases in famous movies translated into
and trigger each other. The work is a generative Death Metal music. By the Road also refers to The
installation that explores the recursive loops that Roadside Picnic that the ilm Stalker is based on.
might occur in a hypothetical scenario. The com- As a character in the book says, “the objects left
puter-based conversation will never be resolved behind seem as though aliens just had a picnic by
and continuously re-attempted. This installation the roadside and left, moved on.” In this way, By
focuses on the commercial and social power of the Road intends to generate an experience of the
these systems. Away from potential domestic in-between spaces.
customers, it instead explores the limited, comic, Bjørn Erik Haugen earned an MA from the
frustrating and, at times, sinister, permutations of National Academy in Oslo 2007. Working mainly
these interactions. with sculpture, sound and video installation,
David Cotterrell is an installation artist work- Haugen creates a conceptual platform, before the
ing across media and technologies. Cotterrell material, media or way of expression is conceived.
works to develop projects that can embrace the Haugen exhibited at Transmediale, Berlin (2015)
quiet spaces that are the sites for action, which and received Honorary Mention in Digital Music &
might (or might not) be clearly understood in the Sound Art at Prix Ars Electronica (2012). His video
future. Cotterrell’s work has been commissioned work has been screened at Palais de Tokyo during
and shown extensively in Europe, the United States Rencontres Internacionales (2012), the Bucharest
and Asia in gallery spaces, museums and within Biennial (2014), ISCM 2014, The Bristol Biennial
the public realm. He is Professor of Fine Art at (2014) and WRO International Media Art Biennale
Shefield Hallam University and is represented by (2015). Haugen will exhibit at Land-Shape Festival
Danielle Arnaud. He lives and works in London, UK. and Fotogalleriet Oslo in 2015.

24 I S E A 2015
 and disorder, as both subject matter and work-
ing process. Recent exhibitions include Holding
Environment (Montréal PQ), The Constant Gallery
(Los Angeles CA) and Unity (Vancouver BC). He is
a two-time recipient of Canada Council Research
and Production Grants.

Scott Bowering
S U R FAC E N O I S E
10 Limited Edition LP’s, Turntable, Plate Glass,
Resonance Speaker (2015)

Surface Noise is comprised of recorded vinyl sur-

face noise pressed in a limited edition of 10 LPs.
Over time, the actual surface noise is intended to
blend seamlessly with the recorded surface noise.
The recording will eventually be indistinguishable
from the real occurrence of surface degradation.
Surface Noise is an attempt to realize a simulta-
neously closed but endlessly accommodating
format. They have little or no beginning refer-
ence point and no possible distortion through
reproduction and dissemination. Each album, in
the edition of ten, is unique because no two LPs
have identical wear and tear. Depending on the
owner’s care of the record, the surface noise will
be greater or less, but it will be dificult to know
what the pristine recording actually is. This piece
concerns preservation, chance, and the relation-
ship of recorded media as a material artifact in a
changing material circumstance.
Scott Bowering is an instructor at Emily Carr
University and The School of Contemporary Arts
at Simon Fraser University and has exhibited work
in Canada and internationally. His diverse working
methods are informed by an interest in the experi-
ence and psychology of perception, organization,

DISRUPTION 25
John Slepian
A R E A L L Y G R E AT
IDEA
Performance (2014)

A Really Great Idea is a humorous performance

inspired by early Conceptual Art. In it, the art-
ist uses a hacked brainwave sensor to turn a
light bulb positioned over his head on and off.
Revisiting the highly inluential performance and
video works of the 1960s and 1970s, the perfor-
mance is an absurdist proposal that looks at sim- Matthew Hebert (eleet warez)
WA R M U P S ( F O R
ple actions and the concept of an idea.
Slepian’s artwork has been shown in the
US and internationally, including P.S.1/MOMA A L L A N K A P ROW )
and Hunter College Art Galleries in New York, the Wood, Electronics, Text (2014)
Exploratorium in San Francisco, Axiom Gallery,
Boston Cyberarts Gallery, and the Boston Allan Kaprow produced an extensive series of
Center for the Arts in Boston, and Re-New books to complement his activity-based proj-
Digital Art Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. ects. These books took the form of instructions
He is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in and were meant to help people create their own
San Francisco, is a member of the COLLISION versions of the activities being described. Warm
Collective in Boston and was a resident in the Ups (for Allan Kaprow) refers to Kaprow’s work in
P.S.1 National Studio Program in 2002-2003. which activities create warmth in different ways. In
Slepian is currently Assistant Professor of Art and my reinterpretation of the work, the user engages
Technology at Hampshire and Smith Colleges in in modiied versions of several of the interac-
Western Massachusetts. tions found in Kaprow’s Warm Ups. The viewer is
asked to perform these actions and then respond
to cues from the piece, therefore completing the
piece through their performance.
Matthew Hebert has been working under the
studio name eleet warez since shortly after com-
pleting his undergraduate studies in the mid-90s.
The name is borrowed from hacker culture and
suggests the technical sophistication, improvisa-
tional spirit, and freewheeling appropriation that is
essential to his work. Matthew Hebert’s work has
been exhibited at venues including The Museum
of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Berkeley

26 I S E A 2015
Art Museum, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The audio portion was created using MIDI synthesizers
Museum of Craft and Folk Art; The Albuquerque driven by a sequencer application created by the
Museum; The Chicago Cultural Center, and artist using the Max/MSP programming environ-
Core77 in New York. He is currently Associate ment. As the two streams of audio go in and out of
Professor of Art at San Diego State University. phase, long term rhythmic variations are created.
Philip Galanter is an artist, theorist, and
curator. As an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M
University he conducts graduate studios in gen-
erative art and physical computing. Philip creates
generative hardware systems, light sculptures,
video and sound art installations, digital ine art
prints, and light-box transparencies. His work has
been shown in the United States, Canada, the
Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, Italy, and Tunisia.
Philip’s research includes the artistic exploration
of complex systems, and the development of art
theory bridging the cultures of science and the
humanities. His writing has appeared in both art
and science publications.

Philip Galanter
U N T I T L E D (C A B L E S )
V 072739 A
Analog video with sound (1993)

Untitled (Cables) V072739A is from an early series

of generative art videos designed for ambient use
in living and working spaces. The motion picture
portion was created using video feedback as well
as various in-camera techniques. Video feedback
can be considered a complex generative sys-
tem because it exhibits deterministic chaos. The

DISRUPTION 27
Antoine Schmitt
RANGER-DÉRANGER
Projection, Software (2014)

Ranger-Déranger is an abstract composition of

white pixels set up inside a black rectangle. The
pixels change places one at a time. Two oppos-
ing forces are in play: On one side the software
endeavours to arrange the pixels in neat, straight
lines. On the other side the machine works to dis-
place the pixels at random. It is a model for the
universal struggle between order and chaos.
Antoine Schmitt creates installations, urban
art and performances that question philosophical
and social problematics. His work has received jonCates
several international awards and has been exhib-
G R E E N . Q T _ S L I P PAG E .
ited in festivals and museums worldwide. As a the-
oretician, speaker and editor of gratin.org, Antoine M OV
Schmitt explores the ield of programmed art. (1999)

505 . V I R I
(2005)

B RO K E N P H O N E
GRADIENT
(2015)

SMALL HORN
(2015)

For ISEA2015 jonCates creates a site speciic

installation featuring recent and historical works
of glitch art, including green.qt_slippage.mov
(1999), 505.VIRI (2005) and GIFs like Broken
Phone Gradient and Small Horn.
jonCates’ projects are widely available online
as well as being presented internationally in cities
such as Aix-en-Provence, Austin, Berlin, Beijing,
Birmingham, Boston, Cairo, Chicago, Dallas,
Houston, Kassel, Linz, Los Angeles, Madrid,
Mexico City, Miami, Montreal, Moscow, New York,
Paris, Riga, Singapore, Vancouver, Vienna and

28 I S E A 2015
Warsaw. In 2005 he created the concept of Dirty native Teleport sound and visual effect. The tele-
New Media, an aesthetic concept or technique of port loop in each level repeats for as long as the
the unstable arts now known as Glitch Art. game is running, potentially forever.
Julianne Aguilar is a multimedia artist who
makes work about computers, the internet and
video games. She is interested in the network’s
ability to achieve immortality. She is an MFA can-
didate at the University of New Mexico.

Julianne Aguilar
VERTICAL
TELEPORTER &
VERTICAL
T E L E P O R T E R II ( G L I T C H )
Video game (2014)

In Vertical Teleporter and Vertical Teleporter II

(Glitch), Julianne Aguilar constructs two stand-
alone levels for the 1996 video game Quake that
teleport the player endlessly through a single
contained space. The architecture and physics
of each level work to distort or glitch the game’s

DISRUPTION 29
jimpunk Benjamin Gaulon
TA RG E T _ C R A S H KINDLE GLITCHED
Pop-up videos project (2014) (K I N D L E G L I T C H E D
QT mp4 html javascript pop Up internet sound
*THE AESTHETICS
videos projection OF PLANNED
jimpunk has participated in various interna- OBSOLESCENCE/
tional new media festivals & exhibitions, includ-
ing Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),
READYMADES
l’espace virtuel du jeu de paume, le SPAMM. GLITCH ART)
fr, 20111 GLI.TC/H festival, Observatori 2008, Kindle (2012)
Dallas video festival, Blip festival, Sonar festi-
val, Rhizome Artbase 101 for New Museum of KindleGlitched is a series of glitched kindles
Contemporary Art, runme.org festival, European donated, found or bought on eBay, signed by the
Media Art Festival, Stuttgart ilmwinter 2009 artist. The generated visuals are unique and per-
2005 2004, break21_6th International Festival of manent. The work can be contextualized in rela-
Young Emerging Artists, FILE-2002 electronic lan- tion to Retail Poisoning, which is the act of inten-
guage international festival, Impakt Festival 2002, tionally injecting critical / corrupt / fake / glitched
machida museum art on the net 2002. data and/or hardware into existing online and
ofline retail outlets.
Benjamin Gaulon is an artist, researcher and
art college lecturer. He has previously released
work under the name Recyclism. Gaulon’s
research focuses on the limits and failures of
information and communication technologies,
planned obsolescence, consumerism and dis-
posable society, and ownership and privacy, and
operates through the exploration of détourne-
ment, hacking and recycling. His projects can be
softwares, installations, pieces of hardware, web
based projects, interactive works, street art inter-
ventions and are, when applicable, open source.

30 I S E A 2015
Neil Mendoza
T H E P O N Y T RO N
Scavenged Stepper Motors, Car Door Lock
Steven A. Bjornson
Solenoids, Action Man, My Little Pony, Aluminium
(2014)
# I H E A R T RO B O T M U S I C
Robotics and Sound Waves (2012)
This piece takes two cast off toys – Action Man
and My Little Pony – and brings them together to #iHeartRobotMusic is an interactive robotic
form a new whole. The two toys work in harmony musical instrument. Images uploaded through
to bring to life a dose of 80s synth pop. Instagram are transformed into compositions
Neil Mendoza is an artist exploring ways of which are played through robotic actuators hitting
breathing life into objects and spaces through the everyday household items. The work examines
use of digital and mechanical technology. He is a how new technologies can be understood as con-
founding member of the collective, is this good?. necting individuals in alternate, emergent ways
His work has been exhibited by The AND Festival, that run counter to common expectations.
The Barbican, BBC Big Screens, ISEA, Kinetica, Steven A. Bjornson is a Victoria-based art-
The Museum of London, The Nottingham ist, inventor, and composer. His works focus on
Playhouse, Oi Futuro, PICNIC Festival, The the interface between humans and computers.
Science Museum, The V&A and Watermans, His practice is informed by theories of feedback,
among others. He is based in Los Angeles. signal processing, and machine learning.

DISRUPTION 31
Nick Bratton
SIGNAL TO NOISE
Computer Program (2014-2015)

Signal to Noise archives pixels extracted from

images found on the hosting service imgur.
com. Images of memes, ads, porn, landscapes,
and cats all live together on imgur’s servers.
Navigation to any image requires appending a
random ive, six, or seven character ile path to
the address imgur.com/. Signal to Noise navigates
the site’s servers to ind a random collection of
images as quickly as possible. Pixels at speciied
locations are copied from their parent images and
archived, contextualizing the site’s visual data not Yiannis Kranidiotis
by web address, thematic content, or popularity
but by time and space. An accompanying booklet
ICHOGRAPHS
of saturation-sorted pixel archives offers an alter- Digital video (2014)
native arrangement of the site’s content.
Nick Bratton is a multidisciplinary art- Ichographs is an audio and video artwork that
ist from Las Vegas, Nevada living, working, and explores the relationship between visual forms
studying in New York City. After receiving his and audio by transforming the colors and tex-
B.S. in chemistry, he went on to the Interactive tures of 9 famous paintings - and one forgery -
Telecommunications Program at NYU, where he into sonic frequencies. A work of Caravaggio is
is now a Master’s candidate. His work explores transformed from a single tone into an intense
interpersonal interaction in the age of personal spectrum; light on the surface of Monet’s water
and portable technologies, noise in the anthropo- lily pool produces a multicolour drone. The video
cene, and perception. Recently he has worked as frames were created using C++ and Cinder library
a teaching artist at Powrplnt and exhibited at Red while the sound was generated in Pure Data.
Bull Studios in New York. Yiannis Kranidiotis lives and works in Athens.
His works focuses on creating spaces and expe-
riences by combining sound and visuals. This
involves ields such as music, audio design, visual
arts, science and coding. His work has been pre-
sented in many festivals and exhibitions including
Made in NY Media Center (New York), MADATAC
06 (Madrid), LUNDA Gallery (St. Petersburg,
Russia), kuS Gallery (Heerlen, The Netherlands),
Onasis Cultural Center (Athens). Kranidiotis has
composed music for short ilms and theatre, and
holds a BS in Physics from University of Partas
and M.Sc. in Optics from Essex University.

32 I S E A 2015
 Sandra Araújo
R I O - M E P O RQ U E É S
DA A L D E I A E V I E S T E
D E B U R RO AO B A I L E
Video (2014)

This video features popular songs and imag-

ery combined with computer-based aesthetics.
Visual elements feature iconic images, 8-bit, pixel
and glitch. The sound is the result of sampling and
mixing fado.
Sandra Araújo is a visual artist who has spent
endless hours shooting at monsters and strolling
through mazes. So, it only felt natural for her to
evolve her work toward exploring the visual culture
of games and popular gif iles in her animations.

DISRUPTION 33
Peter Williams Daniel Temkin
R E I F I E D M E M E I: L I G H T PAT T E R N
EXTREME GREENIES Programming Language, Installation (2014 -
2015)
Generative Software (2010-2015)

In this work, eighteen corporate/brand logos that Light Pattern is a programming language that
are mostly green in colour take turns competing uses the meta-data from photographs that are
for screen space using artiicial life simulations taken with an Arduino-controlled camera for
based on John Conway’s Game of Life. The viabil- source code. In effect, this work writes code in
ity of any one logo is determined in real-time using photographs instead of in text-based code such
live, stock market data feeds. The work refer- as “GOTO 10”. Variations in the colour and expo-
ences tensions between representations of envi- sure between photographs are interpreted by the
ronmental corporate responsibility and moments computer as commands. When installed in the
of crisis such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil gallery setting, the Arduino-controlled camera
platform explosion. takes a continuous stream of photographs, which
Peter Williams is a Canadian new media builds a perpetual series of new Light Pattern
artist specializing in generative, interactive and programs. These programs are shown in video
participatory art. He has presented work at ISEA form, and stand at the intersetion of photography
2002, 2004 and 2008; Hong Kong Visual Arts and code.
Centre; 3331 Arts Chiyoda Tokyo and ACM CHI Daniel Temkin makes images, programming
Toronto. He currently resides in the United States. languages, and interactive pieces that explore
systems of logic and language. He was recently
awarded the 2014 Creative Capital / Warhol
Foundation Arts Writers Grant for the esoteric.
codes blog. Temkin has been published in World
Picture Journal, Media-N Journal and others and
presented at conferences such as Media Art
Histories, GLI.TC/H, and the hacker conference
NOTACON. A student of Bard College and NYU,
his work has been featured in ArtNews, the New
York Times and the Boston Globe, and shown at
Mass MoCA, American History Museum, and gal-
leries across North America and Europe.

34 I S E A 2015
 of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has exhibited and
screened his abstract ASCII drawings, animated
GIFs, web browser-based compositions, and
videos nationally and internationally. In 2013,
TRANSFER Gallery in Brooklyn NY, held the irst
solo exhibition of his work. In 2014 he released a
video program on Undervolt & Co. and was invited
to a two person show at TRANSFER Gallery. Bill
also regularly performs and experiments with live
audio/visuals in traditional gallery exhibitions as
well as art, technology, and music festivals.

A. Bill Miller
GRIDCYCLES
Website (2014)

gridCycles is a series of 8 webpages. Each page

is made up of the same set of HTML, CSS, and
Javascript, with changes to speciic characteris-
tics and variables in each one. The works form a
free-loating environment that creates a multiplic-
ity of image and language, intended as a specu-
lative visual text system. Because the animations
are entirely code-based, each one is a unique
iteration from within the gridCycles cosmology.
A. Bill Miller, an Assistant Professor of
Art and Design at University of Wisconsin-
Whitewater, earned his MFA at the University

DISRUPTION 35
Justin Lincoln
T H E S T RO B O S C O P E
( F O R PAU L S H A R I T S )
Digital video (2014)

In Justin Lincoln’s The Stroboscope (for Paul

Sharits) a violent, lo-i audio-visual abstraction
showcases bands and ields of rapidly shift-
ing color with an incessant noise soundtrack.
Colors were generated from a feed of images
from Tumblr and manipulated in Processing. The
soundtrack was produced with Little Bits/Korg Jeroen Cluckers
Synth Kit. (Warning. Strong stroboscopic effect.
ONEIRIA
May cause seizures.)
Video (2014)
Justin Lincoln is an experimental artist and
educator. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth
University (BFA 2000) and CalArts (MFA 2002), Distorted memories are created from an imagi-
he teaches New Genres & Digital Art at Whitman native zone known as Oneiria. In our high-tech
College in Walla Walla, WA. Lincoln’s work has world, unpredictable behaviour from technology
recently been screened at FILE Sao Paulo Brazil, is often perceived as negative. These glitches,
The Chicago Underground Film Festival and CICA however, can be a starting point to expand the
Museum in South Korea. possibilities of image production in the digital
age. Oneiria uses datamoshing, a technique in
which digital video images are deliberately made
unstable. Found footage in different formats (digi-
tal HD, VHS, Super 8, …) is used in a painterly
way, smearing images to create abstract, dream-
like landscapes.
Jeroen Cluckers (BE) is a video artist and
experimental ilmmaker. He explores the audio-
visual potential of video and ilm by researching,
deconstructing and transforming the language of
media. His work has been displayed internation-
ally at ilm and video art festivals, and previously
shown on Belgian, Austrian and American televi-
sion. He founded The Stargazer TV. He currently
lives and works in Ghent, Belgium.

36 I S E A 2015
 Marchien Veen
E AC H N I G H T S H E
A S K S M E T O DA N C E
Video (2015)

In this work the artist corrupts digital data to

mimic her own noisy, dreamlike visions. This
draws parallels between the glitches of machines
and the mental experience of humans.
Marchien Veen is an interdisciplinary artist
working in a variety of media including textiles,
digital art, drawing, installation, and sound. Her
practice focuses on process and healing through
futile labour and prolonged repetition. She
received her BFA in Visual Art from the University
of British Columbia.

DISRUPTION 37
Erik Zepka
X-O-X-O-X.COM/
P H O N I C S A B RO GAT E
/ RU S T C H O R T L E
EFFETE
Video, Web (2007 - 2015) (2013) (2014)
2007 - 2015 (xoxox), 2013 (phonics abrogate),
2014 (rust chortle effete)

x-o-x-o-x.com is an evolving work of process and

performance where categories fail and are dis- Benjamin Grosser
rupted, and where technical boundaries between
types of knowledge are probed and questioned. COMPUTERS
Each category is explored through glitch and WAT C H I N G M OV I E S
reconigured toward new paradigms in which nar- Computationally-produced HD video
rative is not quite decipherable. with stereo audio (2013)
Erik Zepka is a conceptual artist, researcher
and writer working in the intersections of art, liter- Computers Watching Movies shows what a com-
ature, science and philosophy. With a new media putational system sees when it watches the same
focus, the growing technologies of the internet ilms that we do. Software written by the artist
form a hub for his interdisciplinary exploration. uses computer vision algorithms and artiicial
Through presentation, publishing, curation, dis- intelligence to allow the system to decide what
tribution, and exhibition, projects manifest in to watch. Clips from six popular ilms are used in
forms that fail to rest consistently in any given the work, enabling viewers to draw upon their own
discipline. The work is distributed throughout the visual memory of familiar scenes. The work asks
social web, linking to the hubs x-o-x-o-x.com and viewers to consider the implications of computer
erikzepka.com under different themes that over- vision for contemporary culture.
lap and contrast with one another. This evolving Benjamin Grosser focuses on the cultural,
body of work has been published, presented and social, and political implications of software.
exhibited internationally. Recent exhibitions include Eyebeam in New
York, The White Building in London, and Museum
Ludwig in Cologne. His works have been featured
in Wired, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Al Jazeera,
Corriere della Sera, El País, and Der Spiegel.
The Chicago Tribune called him the “unrivaled
king of ominous gibberish.” Slate referred to his
work as “creative civil disobedience in the digital
age.” Grosser’s recognitions include First Prize in
VIDA 16, the Expanded Media Award for Network
Culture from Stuttgarter Filmwinter, and a com-
mission from Rhizome.

38 I S E A 2015
 Kevin Day’s practice examines algorith-
mic culture, ICT, and mediation, focusing on the
prevalence of digital immersion. His work seeks
to resist the machinic abstraction by insisting
on the presence of noise in the interface of the
capitalist communication industry. Day received
his MFA from the University of British Columbia
and has presented his research at locations such
as the Free Word Centre (London), University of
Hamburg (Hamburg), and Qubit (New York). He
is a contributing author in an anthology of digi-
tal memories and has received an award from
Routledge Publishing and grants from the Canada
Council for the Arts.

Kevin Day
R E S U S C I TAT E D
ALGORITHMS
Corrupted Data, Lightjet Print
on Archival Paper (2013)

Kevin Day’s resuscitated algorithms is a series

of photographic readymades resulting from
the reformatting and retrieval of iles in a digital
camera. The process of resuscitation leaves a
body of noise on the presumed seamlessness of
data. While data functions by virtue of being the
underlying invisible form, executed through the
operations of algorithms, resuscitated algorithms
seeks to emphasize the presence of the medium,
insisting on a refusal of machinic representation
and quantiication.

DISRUPTION 39
Mauri Lehtonen Karla Brunet
H AU S T O R I U M THALASSOGLITCH
HD Video (2013) Projection (2015)

The work is a violent parasite infection. Video ThalassoGlitch is a selection of glitch images of
and audio were made by hex editing Atari 2600 the sea. While mostly underwater photographs,
ROM iles. they represent a mixture of nature, water and
Mauri Lehtonen is a ilmmaker and a new noise interference. Brunet uses the metaphor of
media artist whose work varies in style from sound, applying different effects such as echo,
abstract structuralism to experimental pop muta- repeat, phaser, pitch, invert, speed, proile, noise
tions. He lives in Prague, Czech Republic. removal, amplify, reverse, equalizer, leveller, click
removal, BassBoost and normalize. The 20 pho-
tographs in the series portray a decaying and
adulterated sea, a slideshow of corrupted iles.
Karla Brunet is an artist and researcher who
has a PhD in Audiovisual Communication and a
Master’s degree in Fine Arts. Her work has been
exhibited in Brazil, Europe and the USA and she
received a grant from FAPESB for post-doctoral
research on Mobile Technology and Art. Brunet
is a professor at IHAC and Pós-Cultura at UFBA,
where she researches projects at the intersection
of art, science and technology. Brunet was the
coordinator of Labdebug.net (2009-2012), cura-
tor of FACMIL/LabMAM (2012), and coordinates
the Ecoarte, an interdisciplinary research and art
group. She lives in Berlin working on a research
grant at UDK.

40 I S E A 2015
Kamarulzaman Bin
Mohamed Sapiee
FAC I A L C O D E S
Photo Archival Paper (2014)

In a world driven by technology and the world-

wide-web, Facial Codes tackles the idea of
inding familiarity in the unfamiliar. This series
of photographs deals with the artist’s memory
of past and present. By superimposing circular
discs with QR codes onto faces, the artist cre-
ates a sense of representational impenetrability
in 2D art and design. Using technology to disrupt
the recognition of faces, the ironic loss of famil-
iarity and identity is summoned, despite living in
an age of modern technology often thought to
bridge distances.
Kamarul is a multidisciplinary artist from
Singapore. He is currently pursuing his BA in
NTU’s School Of Art, Design & Media and major-
ing in Interactive Media. Kamarul represented
Singapore at the irst World Event Young Artist in
Nottingham, UK in 2012.

DISRUPTION 41
Billy Sims Winnie Soon
T E M P O RU B AT O H OW T O G E T T H E
Digital animation with appropriated images
M AO E X P E R I E N C E
T H RO U G H I N T E R N E T …
(2014)

In Tempo Rubato, a rapid and sporadic low of

Network, Browser (2014)
commercial imagery is anchored by the natural
human disposition to posit facial and bodily fea- The gif image How to get the Mao experience
tures. The disparate characteristics of the source through Internet... runs on a computer screen
images –magazine covers, advertisements, pub- through a browser. With its speciic characteris-
licity photos, and stock imagery – become a lur- tics of grainy texture, continuous looping and cin-
ried average that both articulates and compli- ematic sequences, the artwork questions how the
cates notions of identity. digital format might reconigure the experience of
Billy Sims creates work between sound, a public space and the public igure of Mao Tse-
video and sculpture. Recent work involves the Tung. Inspired by Matthew Britton’s 2012 piece
anticipation and experience of media languages. How to get the Mona Lisa experience through
He is based in Chicago. Flickr..., Soon’s work places images of Mao gath-
ered from the network at the center of every image
to produce an animated gif. The work appropri-
ates images from wider platforms, including
Google, Flickr and Baidu image searches, which
form a collaborative animation with more than
30 known and unknown Internet producers. The
work explores representations of Mao through
different spatial/temporal/social/political happen-
ings, medium speciicities and subjectivities.
Winnie Soon is an artist-researcher born in
Hong Kong. Her works examine network culture
and computational processes, which take the
form of interactive and network media, installation
and digital print. Soon’s work and lectures have
been presented at galleries, art events, universi-
ties and conferences, including V&A Museum,
Pulse Art and Technology Festival, Microwave
International Media Arts Festival FutureEverything
Art Exhibition, Taipei National University of Arts
and Hong Kong Baptist University. She is cur-
rently PhD fellow at PIT research center (Dept
of Aesthetics and Communication) in Aarhus
University, Information Architect in aprja.net.

42 I S E A 2015
 Michael Rodemer holds Master’s degrees
in Comparative Literature and Sculpture and has
studied and exhibited his work in the USA and
Europe. His current sculptural artworks incor-
porate computer control. Rodemer has taught at
the University of Tübingen, the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago, and presently teaches at the
University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and
Design. During the 1999-2000 and the 2009-2010
academic years Rodemer was in Germany on a
Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship.

Michael Rodemer
R A P P RO C H E M E N T
Mixed Media, Microcontroller (2008)

Rapprochement is a computer-coordinated
kinetic sculpture that uses an ultrasonic range-
inder to sense the proximity of visitors. When
activated, motors slowly grind two brick frag-
ments against one another, turning at times in
opposite directions, and sometimes in the same
direction. The bricks engage each other in a pro-
cess of mutual accommodation. The version of
Rapprochement shown at ISEA2015 uses brick
pieces from Berlin, Germany; one originates from
the East, one from the West.

DISRUPTION 43
Daniel Jolliffe
NEAREST COSTCO,
MONUMENT OR
S AT E L L I T E
Electronic Sculpture (2014 - 2015)

Nearest Costco, Monument or Satellite is a net-

worked sculpture that accurately points to the
nearest Costco, monument or orbiting GPS
satellite(s). As an artwork it explores how we form
our sense of of place in the contemporary envi-
ronment. It merges together ideas from sculpture,
locative technologies and the subjective human
sensation of where we are. The work is arranged
as an array of networked electronic pointing
sculptures in light cases, with each sculpture
containing the electronics required to control a
pointing arrow held above the case by a telescop-
ing mast. In practice, a central control unit directs
the sculptures to locate the familiar (Costco or a
local monument) and the unfamiliar (the locations
of orbiting GPS satellites). This performance of
technologically-assisted direction inding, pro- Jacob Rivkin
duces a swaying ield of arrows that point to loca-
tions in choreographed poetic movement, and is
C O M PA S S F O R
governed by materiality more than information. M O U N TA I N S A N D
Visual and media artist Daniel Jolliffe’s work
WAT E R
traverses many disciplines and interests including
Red oak, GPS, Stepper Motors, wires,
sculpture, interactive art, sound, public interven-
microcontroller, Magnetometer, batteries,
tion, performance and open-source culture. The suitcase (Harriet Horowitz and Richard Rivkin)
goal of his artistic practice is to challenge and
query how embodied conscious experience is Compass for mountains and water is a working
changed by the intervention of technology. He is compass housed within a suitcase that points
based in Montreal. to the closest inland body of water and closest
mountain. It uses GPS, two stepper motors, a dig-
ital compass, and a microcontroller to direct two
laser-etched pointers. A list of coordinates of the
bodies of water and mountains are hardcoded into
the microcontroller. The GPS cross-references
your current location with the stored ones and
turns each motor to point in the appropriate direc-
tion of the closest mountain and body of water.

44 I S E A 2015
 Jacob Rivkin is an interdisciplinary artist and
curator. His work addresses the way we experi- Reva Stone
ence landscape through combining new technol-
REPOSITORIES SERIES
( I N S T RU C T O G R A P H ,
ogy, natural materials, and traditional methods
of making. In 2014, he was an artist-in-residence
at the Hacktory in Philadelphia, PA and in 2008
he was awarded a Fulbright Student Grant. He is
M E D C O L AT O R ,
based in Philadelphia, PA. RADIOPTICON)
Mixed Media (2012, 2014, 2015)

In this body of work, Stone alters and re-purposes

ive obsolete mechanical devices. Each device in
the series signiicantly contributed to reengineer-
ing the conditions of everyday life and anticipated
the changes associated with digital technologies.
Stone’s alterations destabilize the meaning of the
original objects. The viewer is drawn into a con-
versation about change and renewal through the
disruption of place, time, and intention, and points
to the objects and concepts left behind.
Reva Stone’s work is concerned with an
examination of the mediation between our bod-
ies and the technologies that are altering how we
interact with the world. She engages with a vari-
ety of forms of digital technologies to initiate dis-
courses about how biotechnological and robotic
practices impact upon the very nature of being
human. She has received many awards including
the 2015 Governor General’s Award in Visual and
Media Arts and an honorable mention from Life
5.0, Art & Artiicial Life International Competition,
Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, Spain. She has
exhibited widely in Canada, the US and Europe.
She lives in Winnipeg.

DISRUPTION 45
Scott Kildall
EQUITYBOT
Internet Art and Sculpture (2014)

EquityBot treats twenty-four states of human

affect as tradable commodities, ‘investing’ in
emotions such as anger, joy, disgust and amaze-
ment. It then links these emotions with actual
stocks to make investments using a simulated
brokerage account. During stock market hours
EquityBot generates simple data visualizations
that illustrate how the world is feeling alongside Christa Sommerer and
the market performance of its emotional equi- Laurent Mignonneau
ties. In addition to the internet artwork, EquityBot
includes a physical sculpture that links to the T H E VA L U E
online artwork. O F A R T ( C AT )
Scott Kildall is a cross-disciplinary artist who
Interactive Painting (2014)
writes algorithms that transform various datasets
into 3D sculptures and installations. The resulting The Value of Art (Cat) is from a series of interac-
artworks often invite public participation through tive paintings dealing with value creation in the art
direct interaction. He has exhibited internationally world and the attention economy. Responding to
at venues including the New York Hall of Science, the idea that attention is the new currency in our
Transmediale, the Venice Biennale and the San media based society, the artists buy paintings at
Jose Museum of Art. He has received awards and auction houses and equip them with sensors that
residencies from organizations including Impakt measure the time that viewers spend in front of
Works, Autodesk, Recology San Francisco, the work. The value of the artwork is constantly
Turbulence.org, Eyebeam Art + Technology updated in 1 Euro increments, making the pro-
Center, Kala Art Institute and The Banff Centre cess of value creation transparent.
for the Arts. Scott has an M.F.A. (2006) from the Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau
School of the Art Institute of Chicago and resides are internationally renowned media artists and
in San Francisco. researchers. They studied with media art pioneers
Peter Weibel and Roy Ascott. They worked 10
years in Japan at ATR Research Laboratories in
Kyoto and as Associate Professors at the IAMAS
in Gifu. Currently Sommerer and Mignonneau are
professor and heads of the Interface Cultures
Department at the University of Art and Design
in Linz, Austria. Sommerer is also a Obel Guest
Professor at Aalborg University in Denmark.
Mignonneau and Sommerer have created 30
pioneering interactive artworks which they have
exhibited in around 250 exhibitions worldwide.

46 I S E A 2015
 (2013), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2013), CCCB, Barcelona
(2013), CCC Strozzina (2013), MoCA, Denver
(2013), MAK, Vienna (2013), and Architectural
Association, London (2013) and National Museum
of Contemporary Art, Athens (2009). He has had
solo shows at NOME, Berlin (2015); Bellegard
Centre Culturel (2015); Kasa Gallery, Turkey
(2013); Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art,
Slovenia (2011, 2013).

Paolo Cirio
GLOBAL DIRECT
Mixed Media (2014)

Global Direct illuminates the idea of worldwide

democracy within the tradition of utopian artistic
visions. To illustrate the conceptual work, the artist
composed a series of ifteen diagrams of alterna-
tive protocols, procedures and policies for actu-
alizing a global participatory democracy. These
creative organograms were informed by research
on contemporary forms of democracies which the
artist assembled and offers as a documentary
component of the project. Further, the artist pro-
motes Global Direct as a visionary political move-
ment by producing appealing slogans, visuals and
videos with statements by prominent advocates
of participatory politics. Ultimately, the artwork is
presented as a political philosophy that structures
global direct democracy. This occurs through the
opportunities offered by distributed network tech-
nology for participatory decision-making, trans-
parent accountability and civil awareness.
Paolo Cirio has won a number of awards,
including Golden Nica at Ars Electronica,
Transmediale and the Eyebeam fellowship. His
artworks have been presented and exhibited in
major art institutions including Utah MoCA (2015),
Cenart, Mexico (2015), V&A Museum, London
(2014), TENT, Rotterdam (2014), MoCA, Sydney

DISRUPTION 47
Karin Hansson Sissel Marie Tonn
T H E A F F E C T M AC H I N E WO R K S PAC E S
H I S T O R I C A L A RC H I V E S Video and Projection Table (2014)

Video (2015)
Six people from around the world working through
The Affect Machine Historical Archive investigates the online platform Odesk were employed to meet
new forms of contracts and widened deinitions with the artist on Skype to create a digital render-
of employment that might better address today’s ing of their physical workspaces. The piece uses
work realities. By merging the functionality of a the collected screen captured footage of these
social network with online trading, an institution encounters to explore the potential for sensing
is proposed that mirrors the practices of the new and capturing the presence of others through
networked economy. layers of digitization. The work asks how today’s
Karin Hansson is an artist, curator and at communication technologies challenge our sense
researcher in Computer and Systems Sciences of presence, as more and more day-to-day inter-
at Stockholm University with artistic method- actions are absent of physical bodies and spaces.
ologies and participatory process online as Sissel Marie Tonn is a Danish artist with a
research focus. Hansson previously carried out background in media and cultural studies. She
a series of thematic art projects and exhibitions has developed her interdisciplinary practice
related to information society and changing con- out of participatory design programs, drawing,
ditions for democracy. audiovisual scenography, and collaborations with
musicians. Her practice currently revolves around
questions of how ecologies of digital media inter-
act with human bodies, how they deine and
redeine our sense of self and other, and how the
infrastructures of ubiquitous technologies and
interfaces can be reconigured into instances of
sensation, embodiment and lived experience.

48 I S E A 2015
 ing from SFMOMA to OccupySF, and her activ-
ism has been featured in the New York Times
and NPR. Harris holds an MFA in Digital Arts &
New Media from UC Santa Cruz and a BA from
Swarthmore College.

Harris David Harris

D 0 N T B 33 V I L
Site-Specific Installation with Wireless Routers,
Custom Software, Digital Video, and Smartphones
(2014)

Since 2005, Silicon Valley’s largest corporations

have operated private commuter shuttles between
their corporate campuses and San Francisco.
In recent years, these so-called “Google buses”
have become prominent symbols in the debates
surrounding housing displacement, privatization
of city services, and the economics of the tech
sector. Staged in the spring of 2014, Harris David
Harris’s d0ntb33vil is a tactical media intervention
that mimics the network names and passwords
of the buses in order to temporarily disrupt the
daily activities of riders. The work attempts to
highlight the particularity of each city space and
to gesture toward the consequences of replacing
public, embodied environments with privatized
virtual worlds.
Harris David Harris is a media and perfor-
mance artist whose work examines the neoliberal
tendencies of emerging consumer technologies,
particularly in the contexts of urban life and gay
assimilation. His video installations and creative
interventions have been exhibited in galleries and
festivals in San Francisco, Oakland, New York,
Los Angeles, and Bergen, Norway. As a drag
queen, Harris has performed in venues rang-

DISRUPTION 49
David Sanchez Burr
M AT E R I A L I S M /
A N TAG O N I S M
Video, Mixed Media and Electronics (2014)

In this work a scale model of a luxurious dinner

table built from crystal is deconstructed over time
by the ampliied sound frequencies of a vintage
70s organ. The work is intended as a critique of
class inequality and focuses on how the intimate
scale of relationships in our social systems are
linked to the deterioration of democratic process.
David Sanchez Burr is a mixed-media artist
living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Born in Madrid Spain,
Burr began his experimental sound and visual Amelia Marzec
work while studying at Virginia Commonwealth
University. He has exhibited nationally at art NEW AMERICAN
centers and cultural spaces including the Yerba S W E AT S H O P
Buena Center for The Arts (San Francisco),
Mixed Media (2014)
Intervene:Interrupt conference (UC Santa Cruz),
Performance Studies International (Stanford Imagine a future where the American dollar is
University), In-Light at 1708 Gallery (Richmond), worthless. To re-build the economy, citizens
and Memphis Social an Apex Art Franchise must use the only resource available: decades
Exhibit. Burr received an Art Production Fund of post-consumer waste. With no way to afford
Award in 2013, and has received grants from the expensive international electronics, but with a
Nevada Arts Council and National Endowment deep human desire to connect, they sift through
for the Arts. obsolete products searching for working parts.
The goal is to build a new communications infra-
structure that is community-controlled and far
from the prying eyes of any government. Amelia
Marzec’s New American Sweatshop manifests
itself as an installation that models a functioning
manufacturing plant. It relies on volunteer labor to
hand-build semi-functioning prototypes of what
our technology could look like in the future. All
supplies, furniture and uniforms are created from
local salvaged goods.
Amelia Marzec is a Brooklyn-based art-
ist focused on enabling activist communities
through innovative uses of technology. Her work
has been exhibited at Flux Factory, NY Hall of
Science, Governor’s Island, MIT, SIGGRAPH,

50 I S E A 2015
DUMBO Arts Festival, and Rhizome ArtBase. She
was a resident at Eyebeam Art and Technology Jakob Torel
Center, a fellow at A.I.R. Gallery, and a nominee
for the World Technology Awards. Her work has A LITTLE GIRL WITH
been featured in Wired, Make, Hyperallergic, APPLES AND A
FLICKERING BULB
Neural Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, and the
front page of Reddit. She holds an MFA from
Parsons School of Design, and a BFA from Mason Video (2013)
Gross School of the Arts.
In this piece the artist layers multiple versions of
a photograph from a night market in X’ian, China.
Merged with the sampled sound of a lickering
light bulb, the work attempts to create a sustained
sense of experiential disruption.
Jakob Torel’s practice deals mainly with the
archival meaning of photographs and its capacity
to examine the past. Torel has exhibited in sev-
eral group shows in Israel, including Inga Gallery
in Tel Aviv.

DISRUPTION 51
Yuxi (James) Cao
THOUSANDS LI
OF RIVERS AND
M O U N TA I N S
Digital Prints and Screen (2014)

Thousands Li of Rivers and Mountains repaints a

traditional landscape painting from the northern
Song dynasty using 2014 data from the air qual-
ity index of Beijing. The data introduces the real-
ity of environmental degradation into traditional Klaus Pinter
views of the Chinese landscape, raising questions
about contemporary values.
UNTITLED
Yuxi (James) Cao is a creative technologist Photograph (2015)
and artist who has presented different sound and
visual performances and installations between Through interactive engagement leading to the
experimental venues in New York, Beijing and transformation of a drawing into sculpture, the
Hangzhou in China. He works and studies in New piece shifts into a substantively different level
York City. of interpretation. Klaus Pinter lives and works in
Vienna, Austria.

52 I S E A 2015
Luke Pendrell
I N G I S FAT U U S
(G H O S T L I G H T )
Digital Moving Image (2015)

Ingis Fatuus conjures the ghostly echoes of con-

temporary life, positing a dark parallax to the
perception of social media as a benign creative
space of opportunity and friendship. The ghost
is an increasingly prevalent aspect of the con-
temporary world because life has become an
immense accumulation of ghosts. Everything that
once directly lived is now haunted by itself.
Based in England, Luke Pendrell is an art-
ist and writer with an interest in exploring the
interstices of science, technology and the super-
natural. As founding member of the digital art
collective antirom, his work has been exhibited
since the 1990s at venues including Le Salle de
Legion d’honneur (Paris), MoMa (New York), and
The Barbican (London), including a recent proj-
ect Speculative Tate at Tate Britain. He studied at
the Royal College of Art and holds the position of
principal lecturer in the School of Art & Media at
the University of Brighton.

DISRUPTION 53
David Guez
C A M E R A 2067
Camera, Android Application (2014)

CAMERA 2067 is an image-capture device that

takes photographs and sends them to a data-
base in the cloud, where they will be hidden until
the year 2067. The project engages the form of
the camera as an intimate object that is at the
same time a black box. Relaying transmissions
between the present and the distant future, it
engages the internet as a guarantor of memory Jon Flax
and therefore history.
David Guez has been creating artwork related
G I Z A Q UA S A R
4 Obsolete Video Cassette Formats, Printed Posters
to new media and digital forms since 1994. His
(2015)
works question contemporary subjects and their
link with new technologies. Guez deals with topics
as varied as free media, psychoanalysis, time, col- Jon Flax’s GIZA QUASAR is an animation series.
lective uses of the internet, identity problems and It consists of four episodes, each four minutes
loss of liberty, but his most recent projects deal in length, and the series has been taped on four
with memory and time. In 2015, he launched the video cassettes - one distinct video cassette sys-
collective VRLAB.FR exploring art and virtual real- tem for each episode. The series is named after
ity. His work has been presented nationally and a ictional star in outer space. The crudely ani-
internationally, with an upcoming exhibition at the mated episodes tell adventure tales around GIZA
Centre Pompidou in February 2016. QUASAR, its capital, Fuga City, and its inhabit-
ants. With all related original iles deleted perma-
nently, the once-digital sequences are left only in
physical form. As their readability fades, ques-
tions emerge about dependencies between art
and technology, and the relation between acces-
sibility and perceived value.
Jon Flax is an American visual artist. His work
deals with fragmented storylines and aspects of
entertainment design, combining various media.
Formerly an advertising art director, he has main-
tained an interest in seriality, branding and items
of mass production. Jon Flax is based in Berlin.

54 I S E A 2015
 Adam Castle employs deadpan absurdity to
explore our bodily relationship to digital images
and objects. He weaves digital debris into sprawl-
ing and often ridiculous time-based works. Based
in Edinburgh he has exhibited and performed in
London and internationally, recently at Threewalls
Contemporary Art, Chicago and upcoming at
Meridian Club, Beijing. He runs Pollyanna, a per-
formance art drag cabaret night in Edinburgh,
where he becomes the drag hostess, Pollyilla.

Adam Castle
S C R E E N S AV E R
Video (2014)

In this work the artist explores a bodily relation-

ship to digital imagery in the internet age. The
video focuses on the absurdity of being able to
order a towel printed with a .jpg. A loating land-
scape of digital debris contains verbatim recitals
of chatroom conversations about towel printing,
videos painted onto ingernails using iCloud nail
polish, spinning 3D CAD scans of towels, and
YouTube tutorials about how to make CGI tow-
els. Through this work, the artist examines what it
means to bring the digital image into the physical
world, and creates a vision for how to feed these
objects back into the realm of the digital.

DISRUPTION 55
Marisa Olson
BLUE SKY
Video sculpture (2015)

Blue Sky offers a feminist critique of disruption as

a corporate meme. Working under the umbrella of
contemporary tech industry jargon in which the
phrase “blue sky” invites a proposal for a big pic-
ture of the world as disrupted by a new product,
Blue Sky is a video sculpture housed in the gilded
carcass of an obsolete Mac computer tower. The
video’s tension between intervention and cheery
papercraft play speaks to the paradox of disrup-
tion as connecting equally to rupture and faux-
utopian progress. Subtly evoking the mythology
of Apple’s DIY, homebrew, new-age origins, the
video features the artist in a studio environment
working to create a handmade blue sky inside the
backdrop of a seamless bluescreen paper roll.
The work alludes to Second Wave feminist crafts,
ultimately producing as a inal form a gradient
pixel-weaving that is adorned with cottony clouds.
Marisa Olson’s interdisciplinary work has
been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Centre Eylul Dogruel
Pompidou, Tate(s) Modern + Liverpool, the
B L U E / 63471
Nam June Paik Art Center, British Film Institute,
Sundance Film Festival, and Performa Biennial. Web Art, processing.js (2013)
Her work has been commissioned and collected
by the Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern 63471 is the number of the copyright Yves Klein
Art, the Houston Center for Photography, the received for his IKB formula, a vivid blue color that
Experimental Television Center, and PS122, and keeps its intensity in powder form. In Blue/63471,
has been reviewed in Artforum, Frieze, the New Dogruel uses IKB as a starting point to question
York Times, Liberation, the Guardian, Art21, the the concept of intellectual property and ownership
Globe & Mail, Interview Magazine, Folha de Sao of ideas. Copyright laws, patents and trademarks
Paolo, and elsewhere. She is currently a Visiting are there to protect the rights of creators and their
Critic at RISD. ideas and processes. However, the same laws
that protect these ideas simultaneously interrupt
their integration back into dialogue and commu-
nal culture, interfering with the cycle of remix and
re-appropriation. More and more abstract ideas,
forms and colors are treated as immutable prod-
ucts, rather than building blocks and components.

56 I S E A 2015
 Eylul is a multidisciplinary artist from (Philadelphia), Australian Centre for Photography
Istanbul, Turkey. With a double major in Computer (Sydney), Zero Gamer (London Games Festival
Science and Media Arts and Sciences, she has Fringe), Http Gallery/Furtherield (London) and
wide interests ranging from design to internet Smart Project Space (Amsterdam). She is the
culture and science iction. She uses many medi- recipient of numerous grants from The Toronto
ums, from acrylic and markers to digital anima- Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada
tion, sound and coding, sometimes combining Council for the Arts, was short-listed for the
several media. Her work focuses on bending and K.M. Hunter Award and named a inalist for the
crossing boundaries and styles of various mate- Gleniddich Artist Residency Prize in 2014.
rials, and aims to recreate particular emotions
and states of mind dissociated from their original
medium and context.

Myfanwy Ashmore
GRAND THEFT
L OV E S O N G
Video/Machinima (2010)

Grand Theft Love Song is a machinima video

work where the video game Grand Theft Auto
IV: Liberty City is played in order to make Nico
Bellic dance in his safehouse. The video is set to
a Creole Love Call, a public domain song with a
history of disputed copyright.
Myfanwy Ashmore is a Canadian artist
and educator whose ine art practice extends
into new media, game modiication, installation,
new user interfaces and sculpture. Her work has
been exhibited extensively including the Surrey
Art Gallery (Surrey), Arcadia University Gallery

DISRUPTION 57
Elizabeth Vander Zaag
DIGIT SERIES: DIGIT
LOGIC LECTURE; DIGIT
RECALLS THE FUTURE;
D I G I T R E P RO D U C E S ;
DIGIT PORN
Video (1976 - 1980)

Vander Zaag created Digit to be a digital foil for

her analog identity. This early work is a basis of
the artist’s concern with what it is to be the human Austin Stewart
in human-computer interactions. In “Digit Porn”
(1976) sexually charged images from a computer
SECOND LIVESTOCK
magazine are coupled with lines from real porn lit- Performance, Website (2012 - 2015)
erature in an effort to disrupt the male dominated
narrative of ever more seductive computer hard- Second Livestock is a virtual reality world for bat-
ware. In Digit Reproduces (1976), Digit appears as tery-farmed chickens. By performing a straight-
a young woman whose parents are of a different faced parody of virtual reality platform Second
technological generation, to wit: “Mama and Data Life, the project attracts non-traditional art audi-
were both analogue.” Digit Recalls the Future ences to a conversation about the consequences
(1978) is a futuristic animation made of drawings, of people choosing to spend more of their lives
programming text, and male and female voices in virtual spaces, and questions the differences
in the style of a language lesson in which it is between how we treat animals and how we treat
observed that ”everyone will wear little devices, ourselves. The artist performs the presentation
which record audio and video of everything in in the persona of the CEO of Second Livestock.
their lives.” In Digit Logic Lecture (1980) the artist The vocabulary and visual language of the pre-
moves her body in disruptive postures to illustrate sentation mocks the hype of technology irms
a philosophy about the fundamental difference who are perpetually introducing new, disruptive
between Digit and Man. technologies. After the presentation the audience
Elizabeth Vander Zaag is a media artist. Her is invited to experience the VR world through the
voice interactive installation “Talk Nice” produced CCI (Chicken-Computer Interface), a prototype
through the Banff Centre (2000) was exhibited in consisting of an Oculus Rift VR Headset and a
Seoul, Sao Paulo and Paris as well as through- custom-made omni-directional treadmill.
out Canada. Her early work in the 70’s are har- Austin Stewart is an American artist who
bingers of digital technologies. Her video works received his BFA from The School of the Art
produced during the 80’s were widely distributed Institute of Chicago and his MFA from The Ohio
through Video Out and V/Tape. Elizabeth has State University. He is an Assistant Professor
an MA (UBC, 2007) with a publication by VDM in the Art and Visual Culture and Sustainable
Verlang press (2011) Mother Tongue: A study of Environments programs at Iowa State University.
Participant Affect in an interactive Installation. His research is primarily concerned with creat-
ing work that engages a diverse, non-traditional

58 I S E A 2015
audience, and using the work to generate public parallels through a kind of uncanny observation
forums around pressing contemporary issues. and navigation in the found virtual landscapes.
HIs work has been exhibited in national and IP Yuk-Yiu is an experimental ilmmaker,
international exhibitions and has received global media artist, art educator and independent cura-
press coverage. tor. His works, ranging from experimental ilms
to live video performances and media instal-
lations, have been showcased at international
festivals including European Media Art Festival,
File Festival, the Image Festival, VideoBrasil,
Transmediale, and ISEA. He is the founder of the
art.ware project, an independent curatorial initia-
tive promoting new media art in Hong Kong. IP
has lectured extensively on ilm, video and media
art. As Associate Professor at the School of
Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, his
recent works explore real-time and computational
forms of cinema.

IP Yuk-Yiu
C L O U D S FA L L
Video (2014)

Clouds Fall is a series of virtual tableaux, a spec-

ulative portrait of violence and its aftermath at
the end of time. Together with Another Day of
Depression in Kowloon (2012) and The Plastic
Garden (2013), Clouds Fall forms a trilogy cre-
ated using hacked and reworked materials from
the video game franchise Call of Duty. The work
attempts to unearth hidden poetics while creating

DISRUPTION 59
FM Grande Davis & Davis
R H I Z O M E P R I S M #2 H AU L I N G I C E
Projection, Data Processing, Sensors, Installation (2015)
Moving Image, Sound (2015)

Hauling Ice is an experimental setup and narrative

Rhizome Prism #2 is an interactive sculpture environment featuring an animatronic sasquatch
that uses sound, colour, animation, the moving rowing a small, wooden boat. The boat, loating
image, interactivity and light to explore themes in a wading pool, tows a large, hissing, inlatable
of multiplicity. The freestanding hybrid “electro- iceberg, in front of a wall-mounted, marine-glacial
sculptural” assemblage resembles a series of panorama backdrop. Wall text, charts and graphs
stacked prisms. included as part of the installation indicate the
Sydney-based hybrid media artist artists’ experimental design. It is an attempt to
FMGrande was born in Santiago, Chile. He answer the question: Can a sasquatch tow an ice-
is a PhD candidate at UNSW Art and Design, berg with a rowboat?
researching media arts, spatiality and materiality. Davis & Davis have collaborated on a variety
Media artist Teigan Kollosche has over 20 years of photography, video and installation projects
experience in media production, working with over the last several years. Their interests include
prominent artists such as Mike Parr and Naurie the environment, psychology, pop culture and
Neumark. Sculptor Dillon MacEwon works in the- fringe sciences. In addition to recent solo shows
atre and festival productions in Edinburgh, with at Marx Zavattero in San Francisco and L2K in
the likes of Beltane Fire Society, Sativa Night Club Los Angeles, Davis & Davis have exhibited at
and Boiler House Theatre Co. Anna Madeleine is a Linda Warren Gallery in Chicago, Riverside Art
Sydney-based artist working in stop-motion ani- Museum, Chelsea Museum of Art, Ulrich Museum
mation and mixed media. She completed her PhD of Art and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, among
at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. other venues. Davis & Davis have MFA degrees
in Art/Photography & Media from the California
Institute of the Arts and are based in Los Angeles.

60 I S E A 2015
Pippa Lattey and
Thomas Evdokimoff
BANANA
I N S TA L L AT I O N
Nylon fabric, wood, electronics (2015)

Banana Installation intervenes into space with

a multitude of large, inlatable bananas. Each
banana responds to the viewer with an inlation
and a delation. The movement is accompanied
by a burst of sound: vocalizing the syllables ba-
na-na. These are not real bananas. These are
symbols, icons, disassociated from our physical
experiences. They are brought into a public space
to activate a tangible, shared experience, reveal-
ing a rift between the real and the virtual.
Pippa Lattey creates sculptures that move,
and systems that mimic psychological and
physical interactions. Lattey is a student at Emily
Carr University of Art and Design, with a BSc in
Computer Science from the University of Victoria.
She has exhibited at Vancouver Maker Faire,
AMS Art Gallery, HR MacMillan Space Centre
and Science World. Thomas Evdokimoff is a free-
lance musician and educator based in Vancouver.
He holds a Masters in music theory from the
University of British Columbia. Evdokimoff’s
sound projects explore the relationship between
the sounds of the natural world and classic elec-
tronic music techniques.

DISRUPTION 61
Kate Geck
R L X:TECH
Installation (2015)

R L X:tech is a contemporary relaxation studio

specialising in meditation strategies to man-
age the demands of your connected life. Our
perennial waiting room features augmented,
artist-designed wall hangings that are accessible
through a free app available for smart devices. This project has been assisted by the Australian
Once activated, it streams a range of guided Government through the Australia Council,
its arts funding and advisory body.
meditation videos designed to alleviate common
psychosocial ailments, such as nerve pain from
endless scrolls. Or overwhelming dichotomies of
engage/ignore, private/public. A new language of
interaction is evolving, and the emerging codes
can be confusing (read but not replied), unpre- Dana Dal Bo
dictable (Gangnam Style) and tiresome (#yolo).
R L X:tech provides space for you to manage T O M O R ROW I W I L L
these stressors through the very devices that BE THINKING ABOUT
trigger them. Transcend the anxieties constant
connectivity generates. Allow the wash of activity
THE FUTURE
to reinvigorate screen eyes; let hunched bodies Video (2014)
stretch out in the soft space. Disrupt the time-
stamps and binaries of interaction with quiet con- Once upon a time there was limited distrac-
templation and reconnection to mind and body. tion and an abundance of hours. Dana Dal Bo’s
And if you don’t have a smart device, you prob- Tomorrow I Will Be Thinking About the Future
ably don’t need to R L X. combines footage of the Curiosity Rover landing
Kate Geck is an installation artist working on Mars with smartphone video of our moon being
with digital and sensory space. In particular, the passed by a cloud. These events are brought
ways technology can skew and mask sensory together to create a feeling of nostalgia for our for-
experience, and the differences between medi- mer imaginings of the future.
ated and non-mediated immediacy. Her absorptive Dana Dal Bo sees her practice as an
installations are sensorially overloaded with colour expanded fairytale about the contemporary
and AV texture, featuring acrylic sculpture, kalei- notion of the impossible. She works with photo,
doscopic projections and augmented, digitally video, textiles, performance and the net. Her work
printed substrates. Based in Melbourne, Australia has been exhibited internationally including Hong
she is a CCD artist at Artful Dodgers Studios and Kong, Cuba, and Mexico, where she participated
lectures in Illustration at Melbourne Polytechnic. in the IV International Biennial of Textile Art. She is
currently based in Montreal, Canada and has an
intimate relationship with the occult.

62 I S E A 2015
 pursues notions of longing, time, trash, residue,
and waste, and embraces the residual trace of
objects and memories that are discarded, left
behind, or junked.
Deanne Achong’s practice explores con-
cepts of time, narrative and archives, on the web,
in photographs, videos, installations and mobile
applications. She is currently completing a 3
phase collaborative new media public art proj-
ect with artist Faith Moosang. Deanne will launch
her sea monster app project in Bergen, Norway
this August as part of the ELO conference. She is
based in Vancouver.

Deanne Achong
THE OBSOLESCENCE
P ROJ E C T – T H E
USEFULNESS OF
USELESS THINGS
Projection, blog (2013 - 2015)

The Obsolescence Project brings the artifacts,

noises and silences of our analog past back from
the dead, where they are reanimated through
a series of projected photographs. These 30
images are culled from Achong’s year-long daily
photographic blog of obsolete things, selected to
echo the calender format. The blog and images
are a kind of quest for the consideration of obso-
lete things, whether real, owned, borrowed,
imaginary or metaphorically obsolete. The work

DISRUPTION 63
Mo H. Zareei
N O I S E S Q UA R E
Sound-Sculpture and Video Projection (2014)

NOISE SQUARE is an audiovisual installation in

which evolutionary patterns of cellular automata
are translated into the physical realm through a set
of four mechatronic sound sculptures. The sound
sculptures are comprised of a small DC motor in
a clear box with a pivoting door that is controlled Funding: Victoria University of Wellington
by an actuator. Micro-controller programming is
used to change the speed of the motors and to
open and shut the instruments’ doors. As the cel- Marcelina Wellmer
lular automata evolve through new generations,
E R RO R 404 502 410
the installation produces sound and light.
Mo H. Zareei is a sound artist and music Sound installation (2012)
technology researcher. Using custom-built soft-
ware and hardware, his experiments with sound Error 502 404 410 enhances the audio qualities
range from electronic compositions to sound of a server error. The rarely noticed sounds that
sculptures and installations. Zareei’s work is accompany technical errors are normally not
particularly targeted at the point where noise perceived in terms of aesthetics. In this work, a
meets grid-based structures. He is based in New variety of hard disk errors or connection failures
Zealand, where he is pursuing his PhD research become audible. The names of the errors are
on noise music and mechatronics at Victoria engraved on the surface of the disks, determining
University of Wellington. how the disks will turn. The work reveals a kind of
cognitive dissonance that is derived from relect-
ing on error as a feature of the computer as a cul-
tural machine.
Marcelina Wellmer is operating at the edge
of video, installation and painting. The works are
dealing with the relation of humans and tech-
nology and with the interference of information
and media, crossing the border from analog to
digital and vice versa. Important exhibitions 2012-
2015: Re-new / Digital Arts Festival / Copenhagen /
Denmark; Paralows 7, Reverse Engineering / Vienna
/ Austria; Transmediale 2012 / Dark Drives, HKW
Exhibition / Berlin / Germany; Resonant Bodies /
Institut for Cultural Inquiry / Berlin / Germany

64 I S E A 2015
 Wallace to redeine the canvas for the digital age.
Each of these artists will present individual works
using the MIMMIC system.
Paul Wong is an award-winning artist and
curator, who has organized events and public
interventions since the mid-1970s. Wong received
the 2005 Governor General’s Award in Visual and
Media Arts. Patrick Daggitt creates interactive
works implicating his audience through collabo-
ration. His works have been exhibited at festivals
and galleries in New York, London, Miami, and
across Canada.

Paul Wong and Patrick Daggitt

M I M M I C (M O B I L E
I N T E R AC T I V E
MODULAR
M U L T I - S C R E E N I PA D
C A N VA S )
iPads (2015)

MIMMiC (Mobile Interactive Modular Multi-screen

iPad Canvas) allows artists to create and exhibit
work interactively on a matrix of iPads. The touch-
screens can be displayed dynamically in 2D and
3D spaces, responding in unison activated by the
viewer. Paul Wong and Patrick Daggitt are col-
laborating with Vancouver-based artists Sammy
Chien, Evann Siebens, Adam Myhill, and Christine

DISRUPTION 65
Vivian Charlesworth
and Alyson Ogasian
C AV E P L E X U M
Programming, Electronics and Performance (2013)

Cave Plexum is a wall-mounted black rotary tele-

phone from the 1950’s posited as a recruitment
tool for a group of dissidents who are iniltrating
a government entity with the intent to blow the
whistle on corruption. The phone is part of a larger
project and acts as a rabbit hole which allows fur-
ther interactions with the dissident group, and will Katherine Bennett
ultimately let members participate and collabo-
THE DEPOSITORY
rate with the artists (a.k.a. the Operator) over time.
Charlesworth navigates the border between Sound (2012 - 2015)
the realms of reality and dreams, constructing a
disembodied space where the vast and the minute The Depository is a soundscape portal that cre-
co-exist. Through a rigorous research and writing ates a tangible representation of people through
practice, she creates immersive environments personal audio messages. Through this sonic
that assert their own constructed truth. Ogasian’s window, participants can anonymously vocalize
work takes up the moments between observation their concerns, recording messages for others to
and perception and the space between conjec- listen to, or listening to messages posted by oth-
ture and knowing. She is interested in exploration, ers. The work gives form to digital information and
expedition and the search for understanding. The challenges notions about communities that are
glitches or errors that occur within the process brought together through media. By facilitating
of making become celebrated not only as devia- communication between strangers through the
tions from the intended path, but also as potential buffer of asynchronicity and delay, it creates a
points of departure for the imagination. social and liminal space.
Katherine Bennett investigates the devel-
opment of social networks, the thresholds of
interaction, and wireless communication trafic.
She earned her MFA from The School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. She has won several grants
and her work has been featured in exhibitions
nationally and internationally. She helps run the
NYC-Creative and Experimental Software Meetup
and is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Integrated
Digital Media at New York University, where she
teaches physical computing, programming and
interaction design.

66 I S E A 2015
 Wickerham & Lomax is the collaborative
name of the Baltimore-based artists Malcolm
Lomax (b. 1986, Abbeville, South Carolina) and
Daniel Wickerham (b. 1986, Columbus, Ohio).
Formerly known as DUOX, the two have been
working together since 2009. W&L have devel-
oped a nuanced practice that applies critical
intuition and irreverence to the problems and
potentialities of our contemporary media ecology.
They’ve created projects for Artists Space and
The New Museum in New York as well as show at
CCS Bard at The Hessel Museum.

Wickerman & Lomax

B O Y ’ D E GA :
E D I T E D 4 S Y N D I C AT I O N
HD Video (2015)

In Boy’dega: Edited4Syndication, Wickerham

& Lomax present a dense, sprawling narrative
universe that engages forms and themes from
media and fan iction. The episodic web project
at duoxduox.com presents the lives of charac-
ters posited as Baltimore residents who are
drawn in relation to the shifting roles they occupy
within the formal structure, such as character,
actor, author and fan. The artists manipulate
media tropes like the Director’s Cut and Pre-
Visualizations to create a deep, iterative work
that investigates television drama, consumerism,
indoctrination, and criminality.

DISRUPTION 67
Tizian Baldinger Kubrick or Korine™
UNTITLED (Alex Munt and Justin Harvey)
Video (2012) 24 H O U R F R A N C O
2-channel TV sculpture (2015)
Untitled is a life-sized video projection of the artist
– acting as Jesus – hanging on a wooden cross. In 1973 Nam June Paik asked “How soon will
The video was captured on Good Friday 2013, the artists have their own TV channels?”. In 2015
day traditionally marked as the day Jesus was cru- Kubrick or Korine™ respond with a channel con-
ciied. Lasting approximately 3 hours, the duration ceived for cultural producer, icon and visual art-
of the video references the estimated time that ist James Franco. 24 Hour Franco pays homage
Jesus hung on the cross. The artist was unable to to the screen visions of Paik and the presence of
outlast Jesus due to critical physical conditions. Franco. It encases Hollywood image-low within
Born 1982 in Switzerland, Baldinger lives and avant-garde form and speaks to the commingling
works as a full time artist in Zürich. He attended of art and celebrity in the global image economy.
the HFBK University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Part project and part product: 24 Hour Franco can
Germany in 2012 and 2013. Since 2008 Baldinger be retro-itted to discarded CRT’s to deliver a TV
has shown in various group and solo exhibitions sculpture for airports, hotels or shopping malls in
at home and abroad and his work can be found the spirit of Paik’s “global groove”.
in private art collections in Switzerland, Germany, Kubrick or Korine™ is the collaborative
France, Italy and USA. He has been the recipient practice of Alex Munt and Justin Harvey who
of a number of grants from private, institutional work with moving image forms to explore disjunc-
and governmental organizations tions within the global image economy. Past proj-
ects have been created for: Vivid Sydney, South
By Southwest Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival
with The Museum of Contemporary Art and
Cine/B Festival. Kubrick or Korine™ are based in
Sydney Australia.

68 I S E A 2015
Maryna Dykukha Alexis Grey Hildreth
B I G B RO I S F U C K E D S TA L K I N G S E L F
U P WAT C H I N G Y O U _ Video, Found Images, Multimedia (2013)
Installation (2014)
Stalking Self is part of an ongoing series of ani-
This project works with concepts that lie at the mated narratives using image and sound sourced
intersection of art and politics. By pushing for a from popular media. This work explores ideas such
direct action, the work attempts to rethink rela- as individuation, the relationship between predator
tionships between the human and the system. and prey, and the erasure of personal history.
The work presents an interactive eye that can fol- Alexis Grey Hildreth is a Vancouver-based
low up to ive people. When more than that num- multidisciplinary artist. He started his education
ber of people congregate in the zone, the system in the Visual Arts department at the University of
glitches and fails. Victoria and graduated from Emily Carr University
Maryna Dykukha is an interdisciplinary artist of Art and Design. Alexis is invested in the rela-
whose work takes different forms such as media tionship between internal and external geography,
art, video and animation, ilms, and photography. the balance of terror and awe, and with mapping
Her projects have been awarded the Palme d’Or the transition from one state of consciousness
for the Best Short Film in the 64th Cannes Film into another.
Festival, and have been presented in Glasgow
Short Film Festival. Dykukha created this work In
collaboration with the WRO Art Center . The artist
is based in Kyiv.

DISRUPTION 69
Ian Haig
F L E S H I F Y T H E WO R L D
( AU G M E N T E D
DISEASED REALITY)
AR, Silicon, iPad (2014)
Sound: David Haberfeld
Programming: Oliver Marriott

Augmented Reality (AR) technology is re-imag-

ined as Augmented Diseased Reality. The work RMIT University, School of Art

explores a media sphere that is increasingly cast

as part of our bodies. Fleshify the World takes this
idea to an extreme by fusing an iPad with human Leonardo Selvaggio
lesh in the form of silicon. If our technologies are
extensions of our body, then what does it look like U R M E S U RV E I L L A N C E
if those technologies share our disease? Fleshify ( GA L L E R Y E X P R E S S I O N )
the World makes this idea literal, taking the seduc-
Intervention, 3D Printed Masks (2014)
tive, slick and tasteful design of the iPad into the
realm of the visceral, bodily and monstrous. URME Surveillance creates photorealistic
Ian Haig’s body-obsessed works engage 3D-printed prosthetics of the artist’s face in
across media forms. His work has been exhib- order to protect the public from facial recognition
ited in Melbourne at the Australian Centre for software. When worn in public, cameras identify
Contemporary Art, the Ian Potter Museum of the wearer and their actions as belonging to
Art, and the Australian Centre for the Moving the artist, so that the artist’s identity becomes
Image, as well as at the Gallery of Modern Art kind of defense technology. URME Surveillance
in Brisbane, the Museum of Modern Art in New challenges the public to consider relationships
York, the Artec Biennale in Nagoya, the Centre between identity and technology while dis-
Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Art Museum of rupting highly networked surveillance systems
China in Beijing, the European Media Arts Festival through disinformation.
in Osnabruck, and VideoBrasil in Sao Paulo. Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist,
Leonardo Selvaggio, examines the intersection of
identity and technology. He received a BFA from
Rutgers University and an MFA from Columbia
College Chicago and is the founder of Fountains
Foundation at 916. Selvaggio has shown work
in New York, Chicago, New Mexico, Florida,
France and recently in Montreal as part of the
Art Souterrain 2015 festival. In 2014, Selvaggio
received the Albert P Weisman award for URME
Surveillance and exhibited in Art2Make, hosted
by College Arts Association’s annual confer-

70 I S E A 2015
ence. Selvaggio’s work has been featured in nology as an essential and transformative human
Hyperallergic, Techcrunch, Washington Post, condition, he has exhibited and performed inter-
CNET, Verge, The Creator’s Project and others. nationally in venues such as Transmediale Festival
in Berlin, The Lab in San Francisco, The Kofler
Center in Toronto and the Petah Tikva Museum in
Israel. Assor holds an MFA from the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, and teaches Expanded
Media Art at Connecticut College , where he
is also an Associate Director of the College’s
Ammerman Center for Art & Technology.

Nadav Assor
LESSONS ON
L E AV I N G Y O U R B O D Y
Digital HD Video (2014)

Lessons on Leaving Your Body features Jake

Wells, DIY drone builder and possibly the world’s
irst Remote Control (RC) Christian Minister. While
lying, crashing and repairing his homemade
drone in the wilds of the Paciic Northwest, Wells
recounts the story of his techno-spiritual awaken-
ing, from a life in which he felt remotely controlled
by other forces, to his current state. Footage of
Wells observing himself from the drone’s point
of view using First Person View (FPV) gear, and
shots reminiscent of romantic landscape paint-
ings depicting the wider wilderness setting in
which he resides, are woven together with mono-
logues based on Wells’ own brand of theology
that is concerned with the connection between
FPV light, out of body experiences and the nature
of the soul.
In his cross-media work, Nadav Assor per-
formatively mediates cities, bodies and personal
narratives via lo-i reenactments of appropriated
military-industrial technologies. Examining tech-

DISRUPTION 71
Joseph DeLappe
T H E C OWA R D L Y
D RO N E S
Digital image, search engine intervention
(2013 - 2014)

The Cowardly Drones is a series of interventions

that attempt to subvert online images searches
for weaponized drones. DeLappe downloads top
search results of various UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles) in use by the United States Military,
including General Atomics MQ1-Predator Drone, Andres Wanner
MQ9 Reaper Drones and Global Hawk Drones.
Each image is carefully manipulated to digi-
S I G N AT U R E S T RO K E S
tally include the marking COWARDLY upon its Drone Painting Interventions (2015)
fuselage using typical military fonts. The saved
images are then uploaded to the internet with Signature Strokes consists of ultra-short per-
basic titling information Predator Drone, Reaper formative interventions in which a remotely con-
Drone, Global Hawk Drone. The objective is to trolled drone paints ephemeral grafiti in public
force the revised images into image searches by space. The title is a play on signature strikes – the
the general public, causing a subtle intervention drone killings based on suspicious behavioural
into the media stream of US military power. patterns thought to constitute proof of terrorist
Joseph DeLappe works at the intersection of activity. But when the drone engages with graf-
art, technology, social engagement, activism and itti, the marks it creates can be understood as a
interventionist strategies in order to explore geo- kind of signature. During ISEA2015, the drone will
political contexts. Works in online gaming perfor- appear as an expressive agent that will unexpect-
mance, public engagements, participatory sculp- edly intervene and leave visual commentaries.
ture and electromechanical installation have been Andres Wanner is a Swiss-Canadian artist,
shown throughout the United States and inter- interaction designer and educator. His interdisci-
nationally. He has developed works for venues plinary practice at the intersection of art and tech-
such as Eyebeam in New York, The Guangdong nology investigates rule based generative systems
Museum of Art, China and Transition MX, Mexico – machines and computer programs that produce
City, among others. Creative works and actions pictures. He has taught at art and design universi-
have been featured widely in scholarly journals, ties in Europe and North America and is an Adjunct
books and in the popular media. A San Francisco Professor at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver,
native, he is currently based at the University of Canada. He holds an MSc in Physics, an MAA in
Nevada, Reno. Visual Arts and a BA in Visual Communications.
His work has been exhibited at SIGGRAPH,
IDEAS, New Forms Festival, Re-new Festival,
Artech, Hyperkult and other international venues.

72 I S E A 2015
 nological power. He received his B.A. in Visual,
Cultural, and Media Studies from the University
of Bologna and an M.A. from Iuav University of
Venice with fellowships at Bezalel Academy of Tel
Aviv and Bilgi University of Istanbul. Contemporary
intermedia artist Daniel Belquer works inter-
nationally, blurring the frontiers between clas-
sic artistic genres and emerging technologies.
Working as artist, programmer, composer,
teacher, and experimental theater director he is
engaged with technical and artistic aspects of his
work. He is founder of Harvestworks’ International
Art Collective (HIAC).

Emilio Vavarella
and Daniel Belquer
M N E M O D RO N E
Intermedia (2014 - ongoing)

MNEMODRONE is a transmedia memory-col-

lecting drone project by artists Emilio Vavarella
and Daniel Belquer. The work investigates social
and philosophical issues of coexistence between
humans and artiicial intelligent agents. In the
third installment of the MNEMODRONE series,
the public will have the opportunity to contribute
a memory to the drone’s archive. All the memories
shared by the public at ISEA2015 will be analyzed
and used to create an evolving artiicial intelli-
gence that includes a primordial drone language.
Emilio Vavarella’s practice focuses on issues
of political philosophy and contemporary tech-

DISRUPTION 73
Josephine Starrs
and Leon Cmielewski
DA N C I N G
W I T H D RO N E S
Video Installation (2014)

Dancing with Drones is a two channel video instal-

lation that explores the normalization of drone
warfare and surveillance. In this work Starrs and
Cmielewski use drones to capture still and moving
images of a dancer performing within landscapes
that are in crisis due to climate change. The igure
exhibits a range of emotions, including curious-
ity, agitation, and resignation, in response to the
persistently intrusive drone. Joseph Farbrook
Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski and Micaela Gardener
are Australian artists who produce media art
installations situated at the juncture of cinema, G U E R R I L L A DA N C E R
mapping and sublime landscape. Their project Video (2013)
Incompatible Elements, focusing on landscapes
in crisis has been shown in Australia, USA, Guerrilla Dancer remixes the boundaries of
Taiwan, Korea, NZ, and the Maldives Pavilion, what is culturally permissible in public spaces.
Venice Biennale 2013. In their current work they As dancer Micaela Gardener moves through
use a drone to record a dancer’s site-responsive supermarkets, churches, graveyards, electron-
performances in several locations. The result is ics stores, shopping malls, playgrounds, demo-
a video artwork that encourages contemplation lition sites and construction zones, a rhythmic
about our relationship to nature and technology. soundtrack highlights a music that is present in
Cmielewski is a Senior Lecturer at the School of every environment. Against a backdrop of para-
Humanities and Communication Arts, University noia and fear caused by global terrorism, Guerilla
of Western Sydney. Dancer risks expulsion and arrest by dancing in
unexpected places.
Joseph Farbrook grew up in New York City
and Santa Fe, raised by his father, a concrete
poet and his mother, a painter. His work has
been shown in electronic installations, interac-
tive video, and virtual reality narratives. His latest
work explores the intersections between video,
video games, and sculpture. Farbrook exhibits his
work regularly in galleries and museums world-
wide, including SIGGRAPH, The Los Angeles
Center for Digital Art, The AC Institute in NYC,
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, MFA

74 I S E A 2015
and Cyberarts Gallery Boston, and Waterman’s and colonialism. The work features compositions
Gallery London. Joseph Farbrook is an Associate by mira calix and Jesse Zubot.
Professor at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Brian Johnson creates work within the con-
tinuum of cinema in an expanded form. An award
winning cinematographer, Johnson is based in
Vancouver. Dancer Jennifer McLeish-Lewis per-
forms, choreographs, and teaches. She trained
across Canada at The Alberta Ballet School, The
School of Toronto Dance Theatre and MainDance
(2002). She has performed in Canada, the USA,
and Europe. As a choreographer, Jennifer has
had her work presented in Vancouver, Nanaimo,
Seattle, Montreal, Quebec CIty and Berlin.

Brian J. Johnson and

Jennifer McLeish-Lewis
MEAN TIME
2-channel video (2015)

In Mean Time, two igures walk the neighbour-

hoods of Woodstock in Cape Town and the
Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. They are mir-
rored by their movement, by the architecture that
surrounds them, and ultimately by the urban revi-
talization that is the totalizing framework of their
activity. The work explores questions of how we
speak of - and how we might mitigate - the power
and control that are at the centre of gentriication

DISRUPTION 75
Gordon Winiemko
T H AT D O U C H E B AG
WA S I N M Y WAY
(F T W )
Performance, video (2015)

For this piece, the artist turns the Downtown

Eastside of Vancouver into his own private bas-
ketball court. Appropriating the discourse of
sports, Winiemko examines the cultural ethos
of “winner takes all” that fuels gentriication and
income inequality. Absorbed in his own private
game and in disregard of the social contract,
Winiemko frames gentriication as a disruption Matthew Gingold
of the neighborhood. Invoking the division of the
social sphere, the artist applies oppositional lines
D E L AY O R K E S T R A
of our team/their team, oppressor/oppressed, Installation (piezo transducers, microphones,
hero/douchebag. wire, audio interface, speakers, code) (2015)
Gordon Winiemko is a Los Angeles based
artist who explores the relationship between sub- Delay Orkestra has been created for ISEA2015
jectivity and culture. Examining those “things we as a targeted media intervention within the
do” that are sometimes so commonplace we forget active public space of the atrium at Simon Fraser
how they shape our lives, his video, performance, University’s Woodwards campus located in the
and participatory work has been exhibited through- centre of the Downtown Eastside. The atmo-
out the United States, Canada, and Europe. sphere in the atrium features a mix of commerce,
art, and sports, with chain stores, government
ofices, and a basketball court that occupies
space alongside Stan Douglas’ well-known pho-
tographic work Abbot and Cordova, which
restages the Gastown Riots of 1971. The space
evokes the complex relationships between private
interests, government and the public, which play
out in the space of the basketball court that lies
at its centre. In this work Gingold captures the
sound of the game and processes it in real time to
produce an audio work.
Matt Gingold’s practice spans sonic sculp-
ture, light installation, experimental documentary,
creative code, and live audio-visual and perfor-
mance art. From musique concrète to (sham)
animism, neurobiology to artiicial and unof-

76 I S E A 2015
icial intelligence, he is fascinated by the forces
at the interface of body and machine. He has Timothy Ryan
2K - R E A L I T Y
received awards including Prix Ars Electronica
for Interactive Art (2012) and the Green Room
Award for Best Video Design (2014), and exhib- Interactive Soundscape (2014)
ited at Medialab-Prado (Slovenia), Teatro
Mayor (Columbia), MOCA Taipei (Taiwan), Expo 2K-Reality is an audio installation that invites
Bicentenario (Mexico), Seoul Festival (Korea), and basketball players to play within an acoustic
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (Australia). environment, drawing on the conventions of NBA
He is currently artist in residence at Werkleitz TV broadcasts and sports-sim video games.
Gesellschaft, Halle, Germany. Players and spectators obtain a different experi-
ence of performance, motivation, aspiration and
fantasy by playing with this immersive real-world,
digital hybrid.
Tim Ryan is an urban interaction designer
focused on the intersection of sport, art, design
and technology in public space. A PhD Candidate
at RMIT University’s Exertion Games Lab in
Melbourne Australia, Tim’s research informs his
speculative designs for a near-future in which
ubiquitous computing reconigures and aug-
ments recreational play-spaces in dense urban
environments.

Delay Orkestra is supported by Moving Stories

and Werkleitz Gesellschaft.

DISRUPTION 77
Fabrica
Communications Research Centre
(Dawid Górny and Jacopo Atzori)
EDGE –A SUPER–
A RC H I T E C T U R A L
T Y P E FAC E
Software and Computer (2015)

Architecture outlines an urban realm that is rife

with default lows and physical policies. In Edge
– A Super –Architectural Typeface, Dawid Górny
and Jacopo Atzori transmit the motion of skate-
boarding into a dynamic typeface that is realized
through performance. Bringing skateboarding
into relationship with typography in the context
of the built environment allows the alphabet to
become a functional structure, inviting a perfor-
mative critique of architecture.
Interaction designer and programmer Dawid
Górny is co-author of the Cinder Creative Coding
Cookbook and founder of the inaugural 2012
art+bits festival of art and technology in Poland.
His work and research is focused on computer Ozge Samanci,
graphics, software development and installations. Blacki Migliozzi, Daniel Sabio
He has been a resident at Fabrica, communica-
tions research centre from 2013 to 2015. Jacopo PLINK BLINK
Atzori is a graphic designer currently based interactive Installation (2014)
in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His work centers
on editorial, web and type design projects. He Plink Blink is an interactive art installation that
holds a Bachelor in Communication Design from allows three participants to make collaborative
Politecnico di Milano and in 2014 was a resident at music by blinking their eyes. Human beings can
Fabrica, communications research centre. blink voluntarily and involuntarily but generally
they do not think about blinking. Blinking goes
unnoticed because it is silent, but it is also rhyth-
mic. In this work blinking becomes an input for
sound generation.
Ozge Samanci has an extensive background
in comics and media arts. Her art installations
have been exhibited in numerous venues interna-
tionally. Her autobiographical graphic novel Dare
to Disappoint will be released by Farrar, Straus

78 I S E A 2015
and Giroux in November 2015. Samanci is a mem-
ber of Northwestern University’s radio/television/ Matthew Hebert (eleet warez)
ilm faculty. Blacki Migliozzi holds an MS degree
A L WAY S O N E N E S S
(GHILLIE THEREMIN)
in Human-Computer Interaction from Georgia
Tech with a background in Discrete Math & Nano-
Materials. He makes biologically inspired digital Video (2014)
artifacts. Daniel Sabio is a musician and studied
Computational Media at Georgia Tech. He has Always Oneness (Ghillie Theremin) is a Kinect-
worked for Fortune 500-funded startups, major based project that uses the artist’s movements
universities, non-proits and social entrepreneurs. in a Ghillie suit as a means of creating acoustic
drone tones. The work was part of Gabie Strong’s
Crystalline Morphologies performance at the
Hammer Museum in LA and was shown through
the KCHUNG.TV programming for the Made in
L.A. Biennial. The project became a music video
for San Francisco-based band Bellavista for their
song Always Oneness.
Matthew Hebert has been working under
the studio name eleet warez since completing his
undergraduate studies in the mid-90s. The name
is borrowed from hacker culture and suggests the
technical sophistication, improvisational spirit,
and freewheeling appropriation that is essential
to his work. Matthew Hebert’s work has been
exhibited at venues including The Museum of
Contemporary Art San Diego, The Berkeley
Art Museum, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The
Museum of Craft and Folk Art, The Albuquerque
Museum, The Chicago Cultural Center, and
Core77 in New York. He is Associate Professor of
Art at San Diego State University.

DISRUPTION 79
Adrian Pijoan Toru Izumida
O C E A N WAV E S S I L E N C E /N O I S E
Video, Microphone, Video (2015)
CONAIR Soothing Sounds Machine

In this video Adrian Pijoan creates a synthetic Silence/Noise is collage video work that combines
ocean by feeding the white noise from a CONAIR random information, video clips, and images from
Soothing Sounds Machine into a Max patch. The the web in order to investigate the explosion of
generative audio and video ield becomes part visual consumption that has taken place within the
of the landscape within a museum diorama of an social and sharing environments of the internet.
alien planet. Toru Izumida graduated in 2010 from the
Adrian Pijoan makes art that examines Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan, and
issues in the Southwest through the lens of the currently lives and works in New York. His new
paranormal and ufology. He received his BA in body of work generates collages of screen-
plant biology from the University of Wisconsin in shots to create g a modern archive of the digital
2011 and is pursuing his MFA in art & ecology at netscape. His work has been exhibited at World
the University of New Mexico. Art Dubai (2015), and as part of solo and group
exhibitions in New York, Mexico City, and Tokyo.

80 I S E A 2015
Jessica Thompson
T R I A N G U L AT I O N
DEVICE
Mobile app (2014 - 2015)

Jessica Thompson’s Triangulation Device is a par-

ticipatory sound piece that generates improvised
soundscapes between two users. Using a simple,
intuitive mobile application, the piece transcodes
the distance between users into atmospheric
soundscapes that unfold and change in response
to movement, creating improvised choreogra-
phies in shared public spaces. The movement
through space, especially the exploratory, uneven
patterns of wandering, engages the body through
a series of shifting spatial and social parameters.
Unencumbered by the conines of location, par-
ticipants are able to drift through cities in an
almost tactile fashion, articulating social interac-
tions through proxemic interaction, performative
improvisation and play. By broadcasting sound
into space through collaborative noisemak-
ing, the project facilitates new and novel forms
of sonic interaction that investigate how mobile
technologies affect our understanding of place,
home and territory.
Jessica Thompson is a media artist whose
practice investigates spatial and social condi-
tions within urban environments through sound,
performance and mobile technologies. Her work
has shown in exhibitions and festivals such as
ISEA (San Jose, Dubai), the Conlux Festival
(New York), Thinking Metropolis (Copenhagen),
(in) visible Cities (Winnipeg), Beyond/In Western
New York (Buffalo), NIME (Oslo), Audible Ediices
(Hong Kong), Artists’ Walks (New York) and
Locus Sonus (Aix-en-Provence). She is an
Assistant Professor in Hybrid Practice at the
University of Waterloo.

DISRUPTION 81
Stephen Ausherman
E-SCAPE V:
AU T O N O M O U S
EDITION
Video (2013)

Filmed in the Florida Keys, the Chihuahuan Desert

and the German Green Belt, e-scape v explores
the presence of technology in open spaces,
revealing with a sense of magical realism the ways
in which electronic equipment, infrastructure and
refuse can alter our perceptions of the outdoors.
In this series of abstract narratives, nature revives
a discarded TV, then consumes it; a window on
a train both divides and duplicates our view of
a mountain landscape; an electric fence sup-
plies power to electric sheep; kabuki beacons
stream festive data into an otherwise stagnant
swamp; and a Trojan virus, physically manifested
to resemble its namesake horse, escapes into
the wild. e-scape v was created with the support
of Arrow Electronics and scored by the Kevin
Costner Suicide Pact. Élène Tremblay
Stephen Ausherman is an interdisciplinary
artist and author whose works examine cultural EFFECTS OF THE
imprints on otherwise natural spaces. He served WIND ON A SMALL
as Artist-in-Residence at Bernheim Forest in 2012
and Cape Cod National Seashore in 2010. He was
TREE
also the 2005 Writer-in-Residence for Bernheim Video (2015)
Forest, Devils Tower National Monument, and
Buffalo National River. He lives in (and wrote the In Effects of the Wind on a Small Tree, artist
deinitive outdoor guidebooks on) Albuquerque, Élène Tremblay brings a small ornamental tree
New Mexico. into a wind tunnel at an engineering laboratory.
Submitted to the maximum forces of the machine,
the tree bends dangerously at increasing levels of
risk until the machine is turned off. The work points
to the increasingly sophisticated ordeals that living
things face in a technological environment.
Élène Tremblay lives and works in the
Montreal area. Her work uses photography,
video and programming and is regularly shown in
Canada and abroad. She is Assistant Professor at

82 I S E A 2015
Montreal University within the Department of Art
History and Cinema Studies, and holds a Master’s Boredomresearch
degree in visual arts from Concordia University (Vicky Isley and Paul Smith)
and a doctorate in artistic studies and practices
from Université du Québec à Montréal. She DA R K S T O R M P H I A L S
directed the VOX gallery in Montreal from 1998 to Custom software (2015)
2002 and has been the curator of exhibits of con-
temporary photography, web art and media arts. In Dark Storm Phials boredomresearch creates a
world of fragile, growing forms that have a brief
opportunity to release sonic pulses of energy
before being destroyed by a mysterious rumbling
force in their environment. The delicate forms are
related on the level of the computer model to the
vulnerabilities that exist in the natural world and
exhibit behaviours that are not dissimilar to that of
the commercial high street or a inancial system.
This work addresses the uncomfortable relation-
ship we have as a culture with destructive pro-
cesses, despite them being essential for growth.
boredomresearch is a collaboration
between artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith (UK).
They are internationally renowned for creating
artworks which explore extended time frames
and the mechanics of the natural world using
contemporary technology. boredomresearch’s
work opens channels for meaningful dialogue
and engagement between public and scientiic
domains. Their work Real Snail Mail (the world’s
irst webmail service to use real snails), which
challenges our cultural obsession with speed,
received worldwide attention including coverage
in BBC, TIME Magazine, New Scientist and Daily
Planet Discovery Channel Canada.

Courtesy of boredomresearch & DAM Gallery, Berlin

DISRUPTION 83
Bruno Vianna
(Nuvem Rural Lab)
D E S T RU C T I O N
L A B O R AT O R Y
Open Workshop in a Public Space (2014)

The Destruction Lab is a happening that takes

place in a public space in which the artists per-
form different processes of destruction. These
include chemical, such as dissolution in solvents
and electrolysis, physical, such as heat from fur-
naces, or use of power tools, and abstract, such Reza Michael Safavi,
as erasing digital iles. The public is invited to Jefferson Goolsby, Mei-ling Lee
participate through a variety of means, creating a
coordinated artistic process.
S O U N D T R AC E R
Bruno Vianna is a ilmmaker producing proj- Car, Tools, Live Video, Live Audio (2015)
ects at the intersection of narrative and interactivity.
He currently co-runs Nuvem Rural, an art labora- Using a variety of tools, uniformed igures destroy
tory dedicated to collaborative projects, autono- a car, live-generating a variety of audio and video
mous art and technology for social development. samples, rhythms, timbres, envelopes, frequen-
cies, and imagery. The raw sonic and visual mate-
rials are live-streamed from performer – and car
– mounted cameras and microphones to mediat-
ing composers for processing and remixing, then
reintegrated into the performance space. The
simultaneous destruction and reconstruction cre-
ate a singular composition.
Reza Michael Safavi is an Associate
Professor and Digital Media Director in the
Department of Fine Arts at Washington State
University. Digital media artist Jefferson Goolsby
received his MFA in Digital Art from University of
Oregon and is Coordinator of the Media Arts pro-
gram at Lane College, Eugene, Oregon. Composer
Mei-ling Lee’s work integrates contemporary and
twentieth-century western music with traditional
Chinese and eastern forms. She received her Ph.D.
in composition with supporting area in Intermedia
Music Technology at University of Oregon.

84 I S E A 2015
 Sarah Keeling (Pittsburgh, PA) and Claire
Gustavson (Brooklyn, NY) are multidisciplinary
artists. Their collaborative work expresses an
interest in the built environment and seeks to pro-
duce playful variations that represent their experi-
ences and desires within it. They create situations
that redeine the meaning of ordinary objects,
while experimenting with humorous interventions.

Sarah Keeling
& Claire Gustavson
M OV I N G S AT U R N
HD Video (2013)

In Moving Saturn, a maroon Saturn sedan is

pushed slowly and with great effort across a
picturesque landscape. The various sounds – a
nearby river, rustling grass, snippets of conversa-
tion, and birds – are subtitled. Without explana-
tion or context for the events that are portrayed
in the ilm, the viewer focuses on the subtitles,
which present the possibility of narrative but ulti-
mately resist categorization.

DISRUPTION 85
Matthew Schoen
VEHICLES
Video (2015)

In Vehicles, Matthew Schoen imagines a large

retro-futuristic machine. An organized structure
of beams, wires, pistons and gears is slowly
revealed from its smallest components to its larger
and more complex mechanisms. This video work
takes inspiration from the Braitenberg Vehicles
created by Italian-Austrian cyberneticist Valentino
Braitenberg as thought experiments that can Justin Harvey
autonomously move based on sensor inputs.
I SIT INSIDE
The work of Montreal artist Matthew Schoen
extends towards various media such as video, YOU CRYING
installation, and electroacoustic music. His work HD Video (2015)
has been showcased in various festivals such as
the New York City Electroacoustic Festival, the San I Sit Inside You Crying transforms images from
Francisco Tape Music Festival and AKOUSMA. a domestic environment into three-dimensional
Schoen has previously collaborated with dance glitch artifacts. Images of a house in Sydney are
and theatre productions and is a founding mem- refracted and simpliied until they become abstract
ber of Montreal’s Soundwich concert series, pro- structures. The work explores how we make
moting young talent in experimental music. meaning in a contemporary mediascape awash
with imaging platforms and their inherent glitches.
Justin Harvey (born 1975, Australia) is a
media artist specialising in the aesthetics of
glitch. His multi-channel installations have fea-
tured in solo and curated exhibitions in Australia
and internationally. Recent exhibitions and com-
missions include Frank Gehry’s Chau Chak Wing
Building, Sydney (2015), for Dlux Media Arts (2014),
Timelines, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney (2013),
Case Study Underbelly Arts, Cockatoo Island
(2012), Sydney and GLI.TC/H 20111 in Amsterdam
and Chicago (2011). He is a PhD candidate at the
University of New South Wales, Sydney.

86 I S E A 2015
 Alexei Dmitriev
HERMENEUTICS
Video (2012)

The work is a war ilm and a visual exploration of

hermeneutics. The artist appropriates footage
from World War II and reconigures it in order to
manipulate the expectations of the viewer.
Since Alexei Dmitriev was just a little girl she
dreamed of starring in an experimental ilm.

DISRUPTION 87
Michael A. Morris
THE HERMENEUTICS
CYCLE
Expanded Film Performance
(16mm Film Projection, Custom Software,
Digital Projection) (2012 - 2015)

The works in The Hermeneutics Cycle displace

the role of the reader and the text onto moving
image technologies that are in some ways alien
to one another. Each work initiates an encounter
between technologies with their own inherent way
of reading and interpreting information in order
to exploit the artifacts produced in the process.
Second Hermeneutic and Third Hermeneutic are
the two most recent entries in the cycle. Both
works are expanded ilms that are performed in
real time.
Michael A. Morris is an artist, curator and
educator based in Dallas, Texas. Working primar-
ily with ilm, video and expanded cinematic forms,
Morris’s work responds to the rapidly changing
experience of moving images in the 21st century
and how media affects perception, history, mor- Anne Morgan Spalter
tality and our relationship with others. Morris has
exhibited his work at museums, galleries, micro-
NEW YORK
cinemas and ilm festivals across North America. UNFOLDING
He is the programmer of Experimental Film and Digital video (2015)
Video for the Video Association of Dallas, and is
one of the founders of the Dallas Medianale. He For Manhattan Unfolding 1 Spalter shot original
teaches at University of North Texas, University of footage from a helicopter over the city, exploring
Texas-Dallas, and Richland College. Manhattan’s iconic yet ever-changing landscape.
Custom software allowed the artist to interfere
with normal viewing practices, merging east with
west and representation with abstraction. The
piece offers glimpses of a city constantly unfold-
ing in time.
Anne Morgan Spalter is an artist and author
whose career relects her long-standing goal of
integrating art and technology. Drawing inspira-
tion from painting, mathematics, and Buddhist
and Islamic art, Spalter shoots original footage in

88 I S E A 2015
cities around the world and uses custom software
to develop patterned compositions that explore Evann Siebens
the concept of the modern landscape. She shows
widely and has work in leading contemporary col-
D E C O N S T RU C T I O N
lections in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle Single Channel HD Video (2015)
East and in museums such as the Albright-Knox
(Buffalo, NY), the Rhode Island School of Design Vancouver is crumbling. Or perhaps it‘s being
(RISD) Museum (Providence, RI), and the Victoria methodically taken apart brick by brick. Whether
& Albert Museum (London, UK). for reasons of density, seismic upgrade or esca-
lating value, old houses, schools, and movie the-
atres are being demolished to make way for the
new. Referencing Derrida’s semiotic text, deCon-
struction is an ongoing series of choreographed
short ilms that capture the dismantling of the his-
toric city. What might have been inhabited for half
a century can be demolished in a day. By intro-
ducing dance to demolition, Siebens points out
that ageism applies to architecture as it does to
the bodies of dancers.
Evann Siebens makes media with move-
ment. She has exhibited her short ilms at
Eyebeam and Centre Pompidou, and her docu-
mentaries at MoMA and on PBS. Now based in
Vancouver, Evann is a former dancer with the
National Ballet of Canada and graduated from
NYU. She has participated in residencies at the
Banff Centre and ACME/UK with Keith Doyle.
Recent exhibitions include MediaArtLab, Russia;
dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton; WAAP, Gallery 295,
and BAF, Vancouver. Evann is a recent winner of
the ID/Identities Istanbul Best Video Prize and
is working on a commission from Paul Wong
Projects entitled MIMMIC.

DISRUPTION 89
Katsufumi Matsui, Kazunori
Ogasawara, Seiichiro Matsumura,
Seiko Okamoto, Cuichi Arakawa
T H E 360 ° S K Y L I N E
S O N G P ROJ E C T
Installation (2014)

The 360° Skyline Song Project is an audio-visual

installation that makes sound waves from the
visual boundaries between the surrounding scen-
ery and sky. The visual data, made by recording
the scenery with a video camera rotating on an
angle of 360 degrees, is transformed into sound
waves in real time by analyzing each camera
frame. This installation implies the instability
of the surroundings, by interactively producing
sound from changing surroundings and showing
the captured movie.
Katsufumi Matsui is a Ph.D student in the
Graduate school of Interdisciplinary Information
Studies at the University of Tokyo, Japan. His
research interests include audiovisual instal-
lation and interactive art. Kazunori Ogasawara Kyriaki Goni and
is an engineer of AgIC Inc. He studied control Theodoros Papatheodorou
system engineering at the Tokyo Institute of
Technology. Seiichiro Matsumura is a com-
RADIO NIPPON
poser, sound designer and interactive designer. Interactive Installation (2013)
He is Associate Professor of School of Design,
Tokyo University of Technology. Seico Okamoto In Radio Nippon, 652 Geiger counters all over
is a graduate student in Space Direction Studio Japan are used to create an audio map that plays
at Tokyo University of the Arts. Cuichi Arakawa the level of radioactivity at these sites. Of par-
is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the ticular note is the area of Fukushima, in central
University of Tokyo. Japan, still exhibiting dangerous levels of radia-
tion. The data is generated by oficial government
counters, amidst strong indications from the pub-
lic that they misrepresent the true magnitude of
the disaster.
Kyriaki Goni is an artist, creative technolo-
gist and researcher. She holds a BA and MA
in ine and digital arts from the Athens School
of Fine Arts and an MA in cultural anthropol-
ogy from Leiden University. She exhibits her

90 I S E A 2015
work internationally and participates in confer- Artist and professor Chiara Passa gradu-
ences about the intersection of art and technol- ated from the Artistic Lyceum at the Fine Arts
ogy. Theodoros Papatheodorou is an interactive Academy of Rome and earned a Master’s degree
media designer, computer scientist and educa- in new audio-visual mediums at the Faculty of
tor. He received his MSc in computer science Modern Literature. Her artwork combines differ-
and PhD in computer vision from Imperial College ent media as internet art projects, animations,
London. Papatheodorou has published papers on interactive video-installations, and digital art in
science, technology and art, and has participated public space as site-speciic artworks and video-
in interdisciplinary conferences and workshops sculptures. Passa has exhibited internationally at
around the world. festivals, conferences and institutions including
Vortex Dome, LA (2014), RENEW Conference,
Riga (2013), ISEA2012 Albuquerque (2012), FILE,
São Paulo (2011), Soft Borders Conference, São
Paulo (2011), and Artech, Portugal (2010).

Chiara Passa
EXTEMPORARY LAND
ART ON GOOGLE
E A R T H (2014-2015)
Net-art/AR (2014)

Extemporary Land Art on Google Earth presents

a new series of Net-AR artworks created and
usable exclusively on Google Earth. The works,
Augmented Forces on Google Earth, Augmented
Sky-Trip on Google Earth – the Strawberry
Ice Storm, Augmented Cave – the Dispersed
Parthenon, and Augmented Desert – the Liquid
Gale, are a series of site-speciic artworks that
aim to create virtual land art. The works con-
struct a sort of mise en abyme or droste effect in
which one element shifts the other in depth. This
merges the Google Earth environment with the
augmented area in order to create a new space.

DISRUPTION 91
Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko
SOUNDREAMING
Website (2014)

Soundreaming is an interactive Internet presenta-

tion that takes the form of an audio-visual archive
of locations around Barcelona. This website doc-
uments our site-speciic compositions and sound
impressions. Sounds are connected with visual
elements or interspersed with videos, emphasis-
ing the autonomous power of ambient sound to
appeal to the imagination. This project is a joy- Aural (Emerson Pingarilho)
ful rediscovery of urban places. The project was
produced through an Art Residency Program at
PÆ D I A ™
Fundacio AAVC Hangar in Barcelona, Spain, 2014. GIF (2014)
Jacek Doroszenko graduated with an MFA
from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. PÆDIA™ is a platform that was created to discuss
His artistic work involves mainly multimedia art, modular processing strategies for virtual life and
as well as music and audio phenomena. His proj- immaterial geography. The vision of this work is to
ects have been presented at various festivals and explore how virtual images can be collaboratively
exhibitions. Ewa Doroszenko received a Doctor determined and created by decentralized, distrib-
of Arts from the Nicolaus Copernicus University, uted groups. This piece deals with overloaded
Poland. She tests various ranges and scales of data and post-code and is part of the artist’s
artistic expression: from traditional paintings to research on information lows.
multimedia activities. Ewa Doroszenko and Jacek Aural is a visual artist working tactically with
Doroszenko are scholars of the City of Torun in the the alteration of digital information. He is based in
ield of culture. They are based in Warsaw, Poland. São Paulo, Brazil where he is a PhD researcher at
PUC University, and recently curated an exhibition
of video art at MIS/Museum of Image and Sound.

92 I S E A 2015
Rachel Clarke
T E R R A I N C O G N I TA
HD Digital Video (2014)

In this work the artist deconstructs the road atlas.

Detached from their contexts, the pieces form
new visual topologies that suggest computer cir-
cuits or constellations.
Rachel Clarke’s work has been shown in
galleries, museums, new media festivals and
ilm screenings nationally and internationally.
She has recently shown at the Ars Electronica
Festival (Austria); Aggregate Space (USA); and
Currents International Festival of New Media
(USA). Clarke is founding Editor of the Media-N
journal and was Editor-in-Chief from 2005 to
2011. In 2014 she worked with Sacramento
Metropolitan Art Commission as artist/co-cura-
tor for an NEA-funded augmented reality virtual
public art project, Broadway Augmented. She is
Professor of New Media Art at California State
University, Sacramento.

DISRUPTION 93
Shannon Novak
STRING SECTION
Vinyl, Software, Augmented Reality (2013)

In Shannon Novak’s String Section, blank walls

and architectural features are transformed into
musical instruments that the audience can inter-
act with using a mobile device. When a smart-
phone or tablet is held up to a geometric form,
the form animates and generates a single musical
note. People can interact with the work alone or
play with others to generate musical scores. The Besler & Sons
geometric forms visually and sonically disrupt the
otherwise blank canvas of the environment, and
ALONG THE
disrupt social patterns of everyday low. F RO N T I E R O F
Shannon Novak is an artist based in
RESOLUTION
Auckland, New Zealand. He works in painting,
Video (2015)
sculpture, and installation, with a focus on using
geometric forms to explore the interrelation-
ships between sound, colour, form, time, space, Along the Frontier of Resolution is a three-chan-
and social context. He completed a residency at nel video installation that depicts screen record-
CentralTrak at the University of Texas at Dallas in ings from Google Earth. Each recording shows
2011. He has been engaged in public commis- a sustained tracking shot along the threshold
sions in Auckland, New Plymouth, and Denver, between the digital model of the city and the lat,
and co-founded West gallery at The University of unmodeled digital terrain that is adjacent to it.
Auckland in 2012. Besler & Sons is a collaborative entity com-
posed primarily of Erin Besler and Ian Besler, as
well as whoever is willing to help out on projects.
They have shown work in New York and Los
Angeles, and have had writing published in San
Rocco and Pidgin. They are based in Los Angeles.

94 I S E A 2015
PolakVanBekkum
(Esther Polak and Ivar Van Bekkum)
T H E M A I L M A N ’ S B AG
– 250 M I L E S C RO S S I N G
PHILADELPHIA
KML Code Converted to .mov File (2014)

The ilm follows a mailman’s bag during its daily

routine. The bag becomes the protagonist.
The recording engages the real-life moment to
moment activity of mail delivery and charts the
interactions between humans (postman and citi-
zen) and objects (mail and mailbox).
Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum have been
working together as artist duo PolakVanBekkum
since 2010. Esther Polak is educated in ine arts
and painting at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam.
Ivar van Bekkum was trained as a journalist but
shifted his ield to visual arts. Since 2002 their
work focuses on landscape, mobility and medi-
ation. They search for different ways to look at
landscapes and how this inluences their under-
standing and perception. PolakVanBekkum
have worked and exhibited internationally at
Transmediale (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), ZKM
Karlsruhe (London), IMAL (Brussels), and Rento
Brattinga (Amsterdam).

DISRUPTION 95
Chris Coleman
M E T RO :
R E / D E - C O N S T RU C T I O N
Video (2015)
Sound Design by George Cicci

In this work, the artist rode the Denver Light Rail

with a handheld 3D scanning device in order to
capture real journeys and distill them into some-
thing new. The fragmentation and gaps in data
are deined by the physical bumps, speed, and
curves in the movement of the train. While the
inal models are still, they are in fact documents
of time, perspective and perception.
Chris Coleman was born in West Virginia, Matt Roberts and Terri Witek
USA and received his MFA from SUNY Buffalo in
New York. His work includes sculpture, video, cre-
U N K N OW N M E E T I N G S
ative coding and interactive installation. Coleman Augmented Reality (2015)
has shown in exhibitions and festivals in over 20
countries including Brazil, Singapore, the U.A.E., Unknown Meetings is a site-speciic augmented
Italy, Germany, France, China, the UK, and across reality project that takes as its premise the awk-
North America. His open source software project ward and surreal encounters of daily occur-
Maxuino, developed with Ali Momeni, has been rences during commutes. Designed by artist Matt
downloaded over 50,000 times in over 120 coun- Roberts and poet Terri Witek for Vancouver’s
tries. He currently resides in Denver, CO and is an local transportation system, SkyTrain riders can
Associate Professor and the Director of Emergent see a loating, out of place object on their smart-
Digital Practices at the University of Denver. phones, and hear a poetic fragment. These take
place whenever the train approaches a station,
creating unexpected juxtapositions that shift
the anxiety of arrival onto disruptive, ephemeral
“connections”.
Artist Matt Roberts has been featured inter-
nationally, including Taiwan, Brazil, Canada,
Argentina, Italy, Mexico, and in New York, San
Francisco, Miami, and Chicago. He has shown
in new media festivals, and recently received an
award from the Transitio_MX Festival in Mexico
City. Terri Witek is the author of Exit Island,
The Shipwreck Dress (both Florida Book Award
Medalists), Courting Couples (Winner of the
2000 Center for Book Arts Contest), among oth-
ers. Her poetry has appeared in numerous jour-

96 I S E A 2015
nals, and she is the recipient of fellowships from Owen Roberts is an artist and educator
MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden International based in Brooklyn, NY. His work combines digi-
Writers’ Retreat, and the state of Florida. tal platforms with processes including writing,
drawing, sound and animation. Roberts uses
new technology for unintended purposes, like
telling stories on an old lip phone, making video
games with no objective or using software to write
poems. His work is available in the Apple Store
and Google Play Store.

Owen Roberts
GETTING TO
K N OW Y O U
Mobile application implemented
on Google Cardboard virtual reality (2015)

Getting To Know You is an art app for iPhone,

Android and Google Cardboard virtual reality
viewers. The app tells a story through the explo-
ration of moving landscapes experienced by the
viewer when rotating the device or moving their
headset in physical space. The environment con-
tains six levels based on separate visual themes
using 3D animation and algorithmically generated
sound, text and textures.

DISRUPTION 97
 tions and visuals independently while playing
Avatar Orchestra Metaverse together in real time. AOM’s experiments with

THE HEART sonic phenomena, perception, culture, artistic

OF TONES–
practice and identity in sometimes provoca-
tive contexts have led the group to revelations
T H E AVATA R about technology and its intersections with
thoughts, feelings, processes and interactions.
O RC H E S T R A Since its formation in 2007, AOM has created
M E TAV E R S E I N over thirty audiovisual works by sixteen com-

PERFORMANCE posers screened live in eleven countries. Artists:

Pauline Oliveros aka Free Noyes, Andreas Müller
PwRHm by Tina Pearson; The Heart of Tones
aka Bingo Onomatopoeia, Brenda Hutchinson
by Pauline Oliveros; Aleatricity by Andreas Müller
Live networks virtual reality performance aka Groucho Parx, Norman Lowrey aka North
(2008 - 2015) Zipper, Viv Corringham aka Zonzo Spyker, Chris
Wittkowsky aka Paco Mariani, Bjorn Eriksson aka
Ten artists meet in a virtual world to experiment Miulew Takahe, Max D. Well aka Maxxo Klaar,
with sonic phenomena, telepathy and collectivity, Frieda Kuterna aka Frieda Korda, Leif Inge aka
between lesh realities and wired technology. In the Gumnosophistai Nurmi, and Tina Pearson.
irst performance, PwRHm, two virtual sine tone
instruments are tuned to the harmonic series of
the AC frequencies of North America and Europe.
Separated by continents, networked performers
play with breath, avatar movement and light emis-
sions to explore this pure sonic relationship in vir-
tual intimacy. In the second work, Heart of Tones,
a tone is minutely explored within a half tone above
and below a prescribed pitch, through subtle tim-
bre variations and movements by performers on
virtual instruments. The resultant beats, timbre
shifts and audio illusions create rhythms, transfor-
mations and textures that are precisely mirrored
in colour spectrum shifts on virtual screens and
capes worn by the avatar performers. With the
inal work in the series, Aleatricity, two hundred
years of science, technology and cultural history
are exposed when the accidental discovery of the
nerve-system by Luigi Galvani and the world’s irst
science-iction novel Frankenstein are brought
into visual and acoustic proximity.
Avatar Orchestra Metaverse (AOM) is a
globally dispersed telematic collective based in
the virtual online environment Second Life. AOM
investigates possibilities of networked audiovi-
sual performance with virtual instruments that
enable each member to trigger sounds, anima-

98 I S E A 2015
Tobias Klein Nathaniel Stern and Erin Manning
S L OW S E L F I E _ 3.0 W E AT H E R PAT T E R N S :
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Polymer, THE SMELL OF RED
Aluminium Potassium Sulphate, 3D Projection
Installation, Spice, Wind (2014)
Mapping (2015)
Weather Patterns: the Smell of Red creates
Slow Selie_3.0 is a slow growing sculpture that feedback loops between air currents and haze,
transforms crystal condensation into a three smells and electronics, architectural and ground-
dimensional self portrait. The work uses a chemi- based elements, stasis and interaction, in order
cal conversion similar to analog photography that to amplify how movement and transformation are
reduces silver halides into silver metal. The crys- sensed. The work is installed inside the space of
talline mask is accompanied by projection map- a room where the audience is invited to linger.
ping that stimulates and affects the activity of the Using spice, kinetic electronics, fans, fabric, mist,
crystals. The work comments on the perpetual funnels and wind, the work asks how the smell of
relevance of human vanity and the contemporary red affects the event of time.
obsession with the digital portrait. Nathaniel Stern is Associate Professor
The work of Tobias Klein works with a vari- of Digital Studio Practice at the University of
ety of media including reactive crystals growing Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Research Associate
in 3D printed substrates. Originally trained as an at the University of Johannesburg. Erin Manning
architect, his practice blends CAD/CAM tech- holds a University Research Chair in Relational
nologies with site speciic design narratives and Art and Philosophy in the Faculty of Fine Arts at
intuitive non-linear design processes. His works Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). She is
have been shown in the V&A and the Science also Director of the SenseLab, a laboratory that
Museum, London and were part of festivals explores intersections between art practice and
such as Microwave in Hong Kong. He works at philosophy through the matrix of the sensing
the City University’s School of Creative Media in body in movement. In her art practice she works
Hong Kong. between painting, dance, fabric and sculpture.

DISRUPTION 99
 Institute of Technology and is Assistant Professor
Amber Frid-Jimenez at the University of British Columbia School of
and Joe Dahmen Architecture and Landscape Architecture and

MYCELIUM MOCK-UP
Faculty Associate of the Peter Wall Institute for
Advanced Studies.
Mycelium blocks, LCD screens (2015)

Mycelium Mock-up is an architectural instal-

lation composed of a wall built of mushrooms
with embedded screens that play looped videos
and image sequences pertaining to urban aspi-
rations and failures of the last two decades in
Vancouver. The walls are constructed of environ-
mentally sustainable blocks of agricultural waste
and mycelium. Mycelium is the root structure
of mushrooms, a thread-like fungus that plays
an essential role in natural world, aiding in the
decomposition of materials and converting them
to biologically available elements. Vancouver uti-
lizes global capital in an effort to reinvent itself Instant Places
as the world’s greenest city. This ambition, when (Laura Kavanaugh & Ian Birse)
combined with the mechanism of global specula-
tive development, produces a paradox. Despite SLEEPER
the presence of some of the most progressive Generative audio/visual installation (2014)
and experimental urban planning policies in North
America, how can global capital, with its atten- Imagine a world of the nearly distant future in
dant pressures to produce short term gains, con- which humans are dismantling language in favour
struct a sustainable city? When space is a com- of speaking in the pitches and rhythms of pure
modity exchanged on speculation, why not build sound. In this future vision, humans communicate
as cheaply as possible? The installation engages telepathically using hieroglyphs that collide with
with the cycles of demolition and speculative sonic shapes in order to create new vibrations
construction that embody these tensions through and therefore new meanings.
the use of video and next-generation sustainable Kavanaugh and Birse use hardware/soft-
construction materials. ware systems of their own design to present
Artist Amber Frid-Jimenez explores the generative installations and performances. They
role of technology in society. Exhibited interna- began making performances and installations
tionally, Frid-Jimenez has been featured in the as a team in 1997: since then they have created
New York Times, Hufington Post and CBC. She and presented new audiovisual works during
holds a Masters from the MIT Media Laboratory extended residencies in Japan, Australia, South
and is a Canada Research Chair and Associate America, the USA, and across Canada. They are
Professor at Emily Carr University of Art & Design. based in Hull, Quebec.
Joe Dahmen is an expert on sustainable build-
ing technology and design. Dahmen holds a
Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts

100 I S E A 2015
Rick Silva
S I L VA F I E L D G U I D E
TO BIRDS OF A
PA R A L L E L F U T U R E
Video + installation (2015)

The Silva Field Guide to Birds of a Parallel Future

centers around a series of 18 short 3D animations.
The animations mix birdwatching and ornithology
with multiverse and quantum theories. Each ani-
mation reveals a new dimension, where the birds
and their environments oscillate between repre-
sentation and abstraction. Online version at sil-
vaieldguide.com
Rick Silva is an artist whose recent videos,
websites and images explore notions of land-
scape and wilderness in the 21st century. His art
has been shown in festivals worldwide, including
Sonar and Resonate. Silva’s projects have been
supported through grants and commissions from
organizations such as Rhizome and The Whitney
Museum of American Art. Recent solo exhibitions
include SKY BURIAL at TRANSFER Gallery (NYC)
and Render Garden at Ditch Projects (Oregon).

DISRUPTION 101
102 I S E A 2015
RESONANCE

103
Paul Thomas + Kevin Raxworthy
Q UA N T U M
CONSCIOUSNESS
8 Channel Sound Work (2015)

Thomas and Raxworthy create an immersive

aesthetic experience that sonically places the
viewer inside the ‘thinking’ matter of the quan-
tum computer, the atom. The sonic work is con-
structed with scientiic data, where the spin of
subatomic particles is made audible. Scientiic
research was conducted in collaboration with Korinsky
Andrea Morello. The work brings into question
(Abel, Carlo and Max Korinsky)
scientiic research and discoveries by exploring
new experiential languages. R L 2000
Dr. Paul Thomas is Associate Professor and Sound, Light, Sculpture (2014)
Director of UNSW Art and Design Fine Arts pro-
gram. He initiated the Transdisciplinary Imaging Imagine that sound never fully disappears and
Conference series (2010, 2012, 2014) and was is present in our universe forever. What would it
founding Director of the Biennale of Electronic sound like to hear all the sounds of the past and
Arts Perth (2002, 2004). Thomas’s work takes present? RL2000 presents an immersive idea
inspiration and operates within nanoscience and inspired by the recent announcement by research-
quantum theory. Kevin Raxworthy is senior techni- ers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre that they
cian at Curtin University of Technology’s Studio of have documented sound waves produced by the
Electronic Arts. In collaboration with Thomas, he Big Bang soon after the birth of the universe. The
wrote an algorithm based on cellular automaton audience is invited to imagine the implications of
for the project Nanoessence. Recently complet- hearing sound from the deep past, and to place
ing a Master of Art (Electronic Art), Raxworthy’s themselves in a situation where perceptions of
practice engages the nexus between artiicial life, time, space and place might be disrupted.
code space and art. For the last several years Abel, Carlo and
Max Korinsky have been collaborating artistically.
Korinsky has created works in Australia, Austria,
Germany, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates,
and has been sponsored by Federal Department
of Commerce and Technology as well as the
European Union in 2012. Korinsky was awarded
the Young European Artist Trieste Contemporanea
Award in 2013 and the Mercedes-Benz Kunst
Award in 2014.

104 I S E A 2015
 Daria Baiocchi
PLASMA
Electroacoustic-fixed music (2014)

Plasma is referred to as the “Fourth State of

Matter” because the number of electrically
charged particles it contains are suficient to
affect its properties and behaviour. Plasma also
refers to the liquid component of blood that holds
the blood cells in suspension. This work refer-
ences energy, thunder and blood, and uses a per-
cussion instrument called a sinori.
Baiocchi studied piano, classical compo-
sition and electronic music. As a composer for
electronic music, she has participated in national
and international exhibitions in Argentina,
Holland, Ireland, Germany, Italy, England,
Hungary, USA, and Bulgaria, and took part in the
Karlsruhe University project “Open Doors” that
won in MitOst (Berlin, 2011). She was awarded
the title “Cavaliere di Gaia” by the Italian Ministry,
as special recognition for her piece “Piano
Inside”. Her piece “Ombre” was selected by the
New Art Radio in 2012 for “120 hours for J.Cage”
and “Beat Impulse” was selected by the Venice
Biennale in 2013.

RESONANCE 105
Kristen Roos
E L E C T RO S M O G
Sounds (2015)

Electrosmog is concerned with themes of electro-

magnetism and material processes which sonify
inaudible events. Using an electrosmog high
frequency receiver, Roos captures sounds pro-
duced by mobile phones, wireless phones, wii,
microwaves, and other electronic devices with
frequencies between 800 MHz - 2.5 GHz. Will
the electrosmog created by our wireless devices Michael Dean
eventually be looked at the same way as the emis-
sions from burning coal that once choked North
LIGHT POLLUTION
American cities? Sound (2014)
Kristen Roos is a Vancouver-based artist
whose work explores infrasound and electroma- Light Pollution works with sounds that are char-
gentic frequencies. The muted sounds and tactile acteristic of digital audio production and play-
vibrations suggest a primal association, mingling back mediums. Traditionally, listeners ignore the
with the deep droning noises of modernization sounds produced by playback devices, such as
and labor. His writing on sound and radio art the crackling of phonographs or the lossy .mp3
appears in the Errant Bodies publication Radio compression from YouTube. In Light Pollution,
Territories and the New Star Books publication these by-products are presented in the fore-
Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada. ground, allowing them to fully assert themselves
as primary compositional materials. The work
is comprised of sounds from old radios, bro-
ken turntables and other playback apparati. The
materials were repeatedly subjected to a variety
of digital-only processes.
Michael Dean is a Canadian sound artist and
composer based in Montreal, Quebec. He holds
an MA in Music Technology from the University
of Limerick. Artefacts and by-products of play-
back devices and audio production tools make up
the primary source of his compositional materi-
als. His work draws on 1960s minimalism, itera-
tive processes and meta-music effects. Dean has
had compositions performed both in Canada
and Europe, and has been featured on radio pro-
grammes such as RTE Lyric FM’s award-winning
new music programme, Nova.

106 I S E A 2015
 engineering. In 2010 he was a student of Ondes
Martenot in Strasbourg and Paris. His current
interest is to combine traditional composition
procedures with the expansive opportunities of
computer-based music. D’Amato’s instrumen-
tal works have been published by Forton Music,
U.K, and his irst electronic composition was
selected for a performance during the ICMC 2012
Conference. His works have been performed in
Australia, Brazil, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Slovenia,
Taiwan and USA.

Antonio D’Amato
R - E VO
Stereo Acousmatic Music – Audio File (2014)

R-evo is a short acousmatic piece about the idea

of change by means of disruption, evolution or
revolution. Sometimes a change can be a fusion
of different points of view, other times it is as sim-
ple as a change of habit. In this work, short vocal
samples extracted from Joseph-Maurice Ravel’s
choreographic symphony “Daphnis et Chloé” are
processed with acoustic instrument samples and
synthesized with other elements.
D’Amato graduated from the conservatory
in Piano, Harpsichord, Music for Multimedia,
Music Pedagogy and Electronic Music. He stud-
ied composition for eight years and bassoon for
three years, as well as baroque organ and audio

RESONANCE 107
Julian Scordato
AT RO P O S
Electronic Sound (2009)

Atropos evokes images of a dystopian environ-

ment. Electronic sounds are generated by a sto-
chastic process that takes its cue from genet-
ics, for example using frameshift mutation, base
substitution, and sequence inversion. The imple-
mentation is semi-improvised, as it is driven by
random generated variables such as sequence,
pitch, duration, and dynamics. The formal struc- Frank Ekeberg
ture is made of molecules designed as contain-
ers, part of an out-of-time category.
( D I S ) I N T E G R AT I O N
Acousmatic Sound (1998/2015)
Julian Scordato is a composer, sound artist
and music technologist. His electro-acoustic and
multimodal works have been selected in interna- (dis)integration plays with stability and instabil-
tional competitions and performed in festivals in ity, density and scattering, uniication and frag-
Europe, Asia and America. As an author/speaker, mentation, tranquility and disruption, anticipa-
Scordato has participated in conferences includ- tion and surprise, integration and disintegration.
ing SMC, ESSA, CIM and Invisible Places, pre- The work is based on recordings of percussion
senting interactive performance systems and instruments, and is manipulated using a variety
projects related to acoustic ecology. His music of granular, transpositional, time stretching and
has been broadcast in Italy and abroad (RAI time compression techniques in order to disinte-
Radio3, NAISA Webcast, RadioCemat, Radio grate the source material into fragments and to
Papesse, Radio UNAM and RadioCona) and his re-integrate the fragments into new textures. The
scores have been published by Ars Publica and structural elements are shaped in ways that both
Taukay Edizioni Musicali. set up and challenge a sense of anticipation and
order through disruption and surprise.
Frank Ekeberg is an artist and researcher
primarily concerned with the sonic arts. His work
explores issues of ecology, time, space and mem-
ory. Ekeberg has produced art for concert perfor-
mance, dance, ilm, theater, radio plays and multi-
media installations, and has presented all over the
world. He received a master’s degree in electronic
music from Mills College in Oakland, California,
where he studied with Pauline Oliveros and Alvin
Curran, and a PhD in electroacoustic composition
from City University in London, UK, under Denis
Smalley’s and Simon Emmerson’s tutelage. Frank
Ekeberg alternates his time between Trondheim,
Norway, and Arizona, USA.

108 I S E A 2015
 since 1974, he has participated in many concerts
and took up composing again in 2010 using new
digital audio methods.

Gilles Fresnais
CADENCES
Wav File (2014)

Rupture and continuities of rhythm and tone

are the two root principles of Cadences. Sound
objects interrupt the development of rhythmic
sequences that start again a little further on.
These interruptions leave residue in the form of
sound objects whose behavior is determined
algorithmically. These residues are then used in
the musical structure of the piece. The objects,
sometimes tonal, form themselves when the
melodic motifs attract our attention and which are
then, in turn, interrupted by rhythmic sequences.
These disruptions emerge from a certain auditory
comfort and require us to refocus our attention on
emergent sequences.
Gilles Fresnais was a member of the
GRM from 1970 to 1974, and participated as
an assistant in the electroacoustic music com-
position class at the Conservatoire National de
Musique in Paris, headed by Pierre Schaeffer. He
actively participated in producing the “Autodafé”
soundtrack as well as producing performances
by Maurice Ohana at Lyon Opera under the direc-
tion of Theodor Guschlbauer and Claire Gibault,
and worked on movie soundtracks on behalf of
GRM in the “cellule de musique pour l’image”
(music cell for images). A resident of Québec

RESONANCE 109
Gintas Kraptavicius Michael Century
DIMENSIONS WITHIN AND
Sound Work (2014) WITHOUT
2 channel audio (2012)
Dimensions was created and performed using
Plogue Bidule software and various VST plugins. Composed for accordion and electronics, Within
The plugins were assigned and controlled by midi and Without uses the rich expressive control and
keyboard and midi controllers. All the elements timbral palette of the accordion to “drive” a music
are played live and engage with improvisation, of rhythmic pulsation. The piece is in a popular
granules, noise and the computer as instrument. idiom, and its title refers to the George Harrison
Relationships are formed between composed, song Within You and Without You, which provides
live playing, improv, and generative software. some of the melodic motifs. The electronic mod-
Similarly, connections are made between vintage ules used are the ilters and samplers that have
electroacoustic, digital noise and a soft touch. been around since analogue days, and the central
Gintas Kraptavičius a.k.a. Gintas K, is a instrumental technique used in the piece is the
sound and interdisciplinary artist living and work- tremolando effect – shaking the accordion in fast
ing in Lithuania. As an active part of Lithuanian rhythmic repetition – usually synced tightly with
experimental music scene since 1994, Gintas the electronic pulsation.
now works in the ield of digital experimental Michael Century, pianist, accordionist, and
and electroacoustic music. His compositions are composer, is Professor of New Media and Music
based on granulated sounds, new hard digital in the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic
computer music, small melodies and memories. Institute, which he joined in 2002. Century has
He has released numerous records on labels enjoyed a varied career as university teacher, new
such as Crónica, Baskaru, Con-v, m/OAR, Copy media researcher, inter-arts producer, and arts
for Your Records, Bôłt, Creative Sources and oth- policy maker including Banff Centre for the Arts
ers. Gintas K also makes music for ilms, theaters, (1980-83), McGill University (1998-2002), and the
sound installations, and has participated in vari- Canadian Heritage and Department of Industry
ous international festivals. (1993-98). His works for live and electronically
processed instruments have been performed and
broadcast in festivals internationally.

110 I S E A 2015
Motoki Ohkubo Pedro F. Bericat
私は.mp3の中に座っています T 45 R P M R E V E S
( I AM SITTING IN A . MP 3) PERFORMANCE
Látex (2015)
MP3 (2014)
Born in Zaragoza, Spain (1955), Pedro Bericat
The title of this piece refers to Alvin Lucier’s I am works in a variety of mediums and ields, includ-
Sitting in a Room (1969), in which Lucier records ing painting, installation, video, performance,
himself narrating a text and then plays the record- sound and mail art. He has worked on an ongo-
ing back into the room, effectively re-recording ing body of work titled Immaterial Project since
it. To create this new work, Ohkubo compresses the 1980s, which investigates plastics and sound
sound using an MP3 converter, creating a disrup- (Decentralized Congress and Mail Art Calls).
tion, and repeats the process in order to explore In the 1990s he worked with injected transis-
the aesthetic of glitch and experience the beauty tor radios (radioterrorism-noise), generating
of morphing sounds. distorted information to the media, UNSTABLE
Motoki Ohkubo is a Japanese composer MEDIA. Since 2000, he has worked with
and media artist. He has studied with Masataka Staalplaat Soundsystem, exchanging audio and
Matsuo, Takeyoshi Mori and Masahiro Miwa. His latex objects.
compositions have received an ACSM 116 award
from Atelier de Creation Sonore et Musicale
(Japan, 2010) and were selected for Sound
Walk (Portugal, 2010) and Close, Closer in the
Musica Viva Festival (Portugal, 2013), as well
as being exhibited at the Chiyoda Art Festival
(Japan, 2014), the Muestra Internacional de
Música Electroacústica MUSLAB (Mexico, 2014),
Yokohama Smart Illumination Award (Japan,
2015) and ACOUSMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE III
“RAW” in Sweden in 2014.

RESONANCE 111
Hali Santamas Donna Legault
E S C A P I S M I, II SUBTLE TERRITORY
& III ( V E R S I O N ) Computer, Mixer, Custom Pure Data Program,
Microphone, Public Announcement System
Sound (2015) (2013)
Escapism I, II & III (Version) is a ixed audio
reduction of the audiovisual installation trip- Subtle Territory manifests imperceptible sounds
tych Escapism. The piece explores the concept of the immediate surroundings. This presentation
of escapism through a palimpsest of memory is an audio documentation of the reactive instal-
across three variations of a small collection of lation environment. The experience introduces
ield recordings and instrumental performances. listeners to an expanded ield of sound from
Hali Santamas is an artist based in West frequencies and distances at the threshold and
Yorkshire. He creates immersive installations beyond the limits of human hearing. The archi-
based on memories and atmosphere using lay- tecture of surrounding buildings act as acoustic
ered sound and still images. surfaces by transmitting urban and environmen-
tal tremors to a sensitive microphone. Using a
custom Pure Data program, infrasonic and low
frequency sounds are isolated from the live input
and extended across the audible frequency range
to reveal a liminal sonic ield. Environmental res-
onances are heard as modulating drones and
pulses. These sounds are joined by incidental
harmonic melodies that emerge from the activity
of pedestrian and local trafic. People’s expecta-
tions of a familiar audio-space are disrupted when
sound data is transformed into a soundscape
composed by contributions from the public and
the city itself.
Donna Legault is an experimental art-
ist from Ottawa, Canada. Her transdisciplinary
practice includes sound, electronic installation,
sculpture, and performance. The intersection of
these practices focus on the resonance of sound
as a dynamic extension of everyday actions.
She holds degrees in Art History from Carleton
University, and in Visual Arts from the University
of Ottawa. She is currently a part-time profes-
sor of Electronic Art at The University of Ottawa.
Donna’s installations have been exhibited widely
in solo and group exhibitions, festivals and con-
ferences across Canada and abroad.

112 I S E A 2015
 at the Salzburg University, Composition at the
University Mozarteum (Salzburg, Germany), gui-
tar at the Conservatory Gilardo Gilardi, private
study (guitar) with Eduardo Fernandez, chamber
music with Monica Cosachov, and composi-
tion with Enrique Gerardi. Prizes include 3rd at
the First European Electroacoustic Composition
Competition Erasmus (France, 2012) and 1st at
the “Eduardo Fabini” Composition Competition
(Montevideo, Uruguay, 2004).

Luis Valdivia
X A E V 1O U X
8 speakers (2014/2015)

In this piece, the artist works with Supercollider

to map the two dimensional matrices of 0 and 1
from John Conway’s Game of Life into musical
structures. Retaining the behaviours of the Game
of Life, the structures are permanently evolving
to new states, repeating themselves, or becom-
ing still. The piece references a transposition
between states of being across life and death,
information, and sound.
Luis Valdivia was born in La Plata,
Argentina. In 2009 he pursued a Master of
Music in Electronic Music Composition at the
Folkwang Hochschule (Essen, Germany) with
Professor Thomas Neuhaus. Valdivia has stud-
ied other subjects including Computer Science

RESONANCE 113
Joe Beedles Doug Van Nort
E B B A N D G L OW PA L I M P S E S T I C
Multichannel surround audio (2015) Multichannel Sound (2015)

The piece explores the theme of mobile interfer- Palimpsestic uses documents of past electro-
ence and its inluence on musical elements over acoustic improvisation as raw source material
an extended period of time. The work relects on The sessions centre around a form of “multidi-
the indeterminate outcomes that result from con- mensional turntablism”, in which fragments of
stant interference created by being super-con- past sonic memories – captured moments of
nected in the contemporary world. In this work various sonic contexts from natural recordings
sounds and signals from mobile technology grow to systemic glitches – are recalled, reframed and
to become musical frameworks in their own right. juxtaposed. Some are left untouched while others
Joe Beedles uses harmonic structures and are scrubbed, frozen, or stretched into layers. The
modular software setups to emphasize rhythm sonic matter is inlected with a process of manual
within experimental frameworks. His works have sculpting that merges gesture with material.
been shown in Manchester and Oxford, UK. Doug Van Nort is an artist, researcher, com-
poser and performer. His work is fueled by an
interest in affective experiences driven by the
sonic and haptic senses. In his work he integrates
improvisation with machine agents, interactive
systems, and experiences of telepresence. Van
Nort has presented his work internationally at
various festivals/events, with venues including
[SAT] (Montreal), Casa da Musica (Porto), Betong
(Oslo), Cafe OTO (London), Skolska28 (Prague),
QuietCue (Berlin), Guelph Jazz Festival, EMPAC
(Troy), Roulette, Harvestworks, Flea Theatre,
Experimental Intermedia, New Museum, Miller
Theatre, Issue Project Room and the Stone (NYC)
among others.

114 I S E A 2015
Giandomenico Paglia
D I S RU P T I O N S Y M P H O N Y
Music (2014 - 2015)

Disruption Symphony describes human relation-

ships with technology, in which there is anxiety
and apprehension.
Giandomenico Paglia is an italian multidisci-
plinarity artist. His compositions are often linked
to the images of the photographer and video art-
ist Gelidelune, his partner and collaborator, and
become a fusion of sound and image. In his work
he balances simple chord sequences with com-
plex harmonic and stylistic solutions.

RESONANCE 115
LIVELY
OBJECTS :
ENCHANTMENT
AND
DISRUPTION

Museum of Vancouver

Lively Objects is dedicated to the memory of

Wendy Coburn, whose work was inluential in the
exhibition’s conceptualisation and who passed
away during its development.
Caroline Langill
Lizzie Muller

Lively Objects explores the seduction of things As Jane Bennett emphasizes, enchantment con-
that seem to possess, or to be possessed by nects objects and people bi-directionally: Objects
life. It brings together a collection of objects that are enchanted and we are enchanted with them.
vibrate with vitality through mechanical, magical Anthropologist Alfred Gell conceived of artworks
or mythical forces. The exhibition addresses the as re-enchanted technologies2 both tools for think-
idea of enchantment in a contemporary context ing through, and agents participating fully in social
and asks why and how, in an age of rationality, we practice. Objects in museums often seem lulled
are attracted by the animistic and atavistic experi- by predictable taxonomies and display strategies.
ence of things “coming to life”. Held apart from the low of exchange, interaction
Spread throughout the eclectic permanent and decomposition, they become caught in sus-
collection of the Museum of Vancouver Lively pended animation. The artworks secreted through-
Objects iniltrates dioramas, display cases and out the Museum of Vancouver gently disturb this
didactic panels. The works in this exhibition take soporiic stasis, wake up their neighbours, and fan
many forms – gloves, tables, puppets, igurines, the lames of mutual enchantment.
machines, houses and boxes. Seeding quiet dis- The growing acknowledgement of the vital-
ruption amongst the traditional museum display, ity and agency of things also productively disrupts
the objects nestle, lurk, provoke, vibrate, dance, media art theory and curatorial approaches. It chal-
move and speak. Like a game of hide and seek, lenges the specialness of media arts’ claims around
visitors can hunt through the museum to ind the categories such as interactive, responsive, autono-
objects, or drift through and take their chances. mous and generative art. Simultaneously it allows
Some objects are hiding in plain sight, speaking for an expanded ield of enquiry and exchange in
only to those who really stop to listen. Others are which media art can escape its exhibitionary ghetto
deliberately pulling focus and making a ruckus. and form productive and provocative connections
Lively Objects engages with theories of dis- with an unlimited world of things. Lively Objects
tributed agency and new notions of objecthood demonstrates the curatorial possibilities of inte-
in digital culture. It asks how this extremely mod- grating new media art not only with other kinds of
ern phenomenon revives ancient aspects of the artworks but with all other kinds of objects.
human-nonhuman relationship. In particular it This exhibition builds on curatorial research in
highlights the resonances between technologi- new media art and “post-disciplinarity” - the idea
cal objects, imbued with artiicial life, and natural, that the boundaries between traditional disciplines
supernatural or magical things. are not just shifting but inevitably eroding entirely.
Enchantment, that “strange combination Contemporary changes in knowledge formations
of delight and disturbance”1, offers a means to demand new ways to combine, organize and expe-
re-think and to re-feel the liveliness of objects. rience things. The divisions that have separated

117
the aesthetic from the useful and the magic from This exhibition is supported by OCAD University,
the mundane are wavering. Lively Objects asks Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Canada
what role enchantment may play in rethinking our Research Chair Program, Social Sciences and
mutual co-evolution with technology, and how we Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the
negotiate a world where machinic encounters are Canada Foundation for Innovation, The Ontario
inevitable. Arts Council, Intel, Telus, Ronald Feldman Fine
Arts, Museum of Vancouver and the Vancouver
Bennet, Jane. Vibrant Matter – A political Ecology Art Gallery. The following provided production
of Things. Durham and London: Duke University support for Judith Doyle’s work: Ian Murray, Robin
Press, Durham and London, 2009. Len, Chao Feng, Nick Beirne, Naoto Hieda, John
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton McCorriston, James Rollo, Fabiolo Hernandez
Miflin, 1962. Cancino, Cody Berry. Production support for
Gell, Alfred.“The Technology of Enchantment and Germaine Koh derived from CNC machining by
the Enchantment of Technology.” In J. Coote Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Alan Waldron
and A. Shelton, (Eds), Anthropology, Art and Aes- / Ininite FX, Hamza Vora, and Gordon Hicks.
thetics. pp. 40–66. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Members of the Social Body Lab who supported
Kate Hartman’s work are as follows Jackson
Haraway, Donna. When Species Meet. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2007. McConnell, Hillary Predko, Boris Kourtoukov,
Izzie Colpitts-Campbell, Alexis Knipping, and
Marchessault, Janine. Mirror Machine: Video and
Rickee Charbonneau. The curators are indebted
Identity. Toronto: YYZ Books, 2006.
to the following OCAD University students who
Shirky, Clay. “Half the World.” <http://shirky.com/ conducted preliminary research for this exhibition
writings/half_the_world.html> . June 30, 2002.
through their exhibition Inluenc(Ed.) Machines;
Accessed on May 27, 2015.
Robin Goldberg, Matthew Kyba, Kate Murin, Tak
Turkle, Sherry. Evocative Objects: Things We Think Pham, Treva Pullen and Renée Stephens.
With. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011.

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 119
 ded in the everyday, whimsical, and terrifyingly
Diana Burgoyne accurate in its implications regarding our collec-
tive relationship to technology.
S T U C K T O T H E WA L L Diana Burgoyne has worked as an artist
(1985) and educator creating performances, installa-
tions, sculptures and facilitating workshops. An
Diana Burgoyne, renowned for her intensive dura- “electronic folk artist” as deined by the late elec-
tional work, is considered a pioneer in the elec- tronic music composer Martin Bartlett, Burgoyne
tronic media art community. For Lively Objects has performed at The Franklin Furnace, New
Burgoyne performs Stuck to the Wall, animating York, Gianzzo Live, Berlin and Soundwaves, San
the museum and enlivening the site itself. On Francisco, among others. Her work has been
entering the gallery the audience is confronted exhibited in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Reims
with high frequency sounds emanating from cir- (France), Eindhoven (Holland), and Auckland New
cuits mounted to the wall. Two performers attempt Zealand. She has been an artist in residence at the
to silence the incessant din by pressing on prede- The Banff Centre, San Francisco’s Exploratorium,
termined points. They hold their respective poses New Zealand’s Colab and Symbiosis in Mexico.
until fatigue causes them to release the switches She has taught “Creative Electronics” at Emily
and the sound. As they repeat the performance Carr University since 1998.
several times the viewer becomes distinctly aware
of the co-dependence of machine and body. Like
a hungry animal the wall cries out for interaction,
for attention in order to cease its relentless cho-
rus. Stuck to the Wall is one of two historical elec-
tronic media artworks incorporated into this exhi-
bition. Its inclusion is intended to demonstrate the
long commitment of Canada’s media art com-
munity to the investigation of human-machine
interaction. Burgoyne’s use of sound to implicate
her audience has come in numerous forms, but
always through the most eficient electronic cir-
cuitry. Her performance art is grounded, embed- Photo courtesy of the artist.

120 I S E A 2015
 act on us emotionally and provocatively, and
Wendy Coburn Coburn’s sculptures function in such a manner.
Fable for Tomorrow vibrates with metaphors from
FA B L E F O R our collective responses to climate change and
T O M O R ROW its attendant fallout. There is no doubt the Green
Bisque-fired clay and decals Revolution of the 1960s with its broad use of agri-
17.8 x 17.8 x 14 cm and 17.8 x 17.8 x 14 cm. cultural technologies such as irrigation, pesti-
(2008) cides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and high-yield-
ing crop varieties came at a cost. Half a century
Coburn adopts Fable for Tomorrow as the title later, Coburn sounds the alarm, poignantly asking
for a second related work in which two Victorian us to prudently reconsider Carson’s project.
bisque toddlers, a boy and a girl, sit with their
arms aloft, expressions askance as silhouettes
of numerous insects are spread across their tiny
and fragile bodies. These exquisite looking igu-
rines, found at a church sale and known as piano
babies, were popular in the late 1800s as decora-
tion on grand pianos. One assumes the children’s
gesture was intended as one of music apprecia-
tion, but the ambiguity of their expression enables
Coburn to conjure up a very different narrative for
this tiny audience. According to Sherry Turkle “we
think with the objects we love; we love the objects
we think with” (5). For Turkle, evocative objects Photo courtesy of Katherine Knight

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 121
 explores a range of concerns such as popular
Wendy Coburn culture, mental health, gender, whiteness, nation-

SILENT SPRING hood and the role of images in mediating cultural

difference. Coburn’s work has been exhibited and
Bronze
screened in exhibitions and festivals including
47 x 16.5 x 14 cm.
Landmarks (Thames Art Gallery), the Living Effect
(2008)
(Ottawa Art Gallery), Photophobia (Art Gallery
of Hamilton), MIX (New York Gay & Lesbian
Somewhere between 2005 and 2007, Wendy Experimental Film/Video Festival), Transmediale
Coburn found a consumer-grade pesticide International Media Art Festival (Berlin, Germany),
sprayer in her neighbourhood. It was an elegant Kassel Documentary Film & Video Festival, and
machine, with a wooden-handled pump and sil- the Dublin Lesbian & Gay Film and Video Festival.
houettes of numerous species of insects mapped
over the barrel. For Coburn, “It was a beautiful
object that claimed no discretion or bias in its
task.” With as much attention to detail and ter-
rible beauty the artist has replicated the spray
gun in bronze. Titled Silent Spring, the sculpture
is directly inspired by Rachel Carson’s germinal
1962 text of the same name. With remarkable fore-
sight Carson warned of the dangers of synthetic
pesticides, and in fact referred to the chemicals
as biocides for they were toxic to all living beings.
A prescient allegory comprises the irst chapter
of Silent Spring. Titled Fable for Tomorrow, it tells
the story of a vibrant country village whose chil-
dren and elders, meadows, creeks and skies, fall
prey to a strange silence as a white dust covers
the countryside. Coburn redirects this story to
her own community. Fearing for her loved ones,
she etched the names of friends and family across
the spray gun equating her human companions
with the endangered lives insects, animals and
botanicals that Carson so vigorously defended.
Wendy Coburn (1963—2015) engaged in
an interdisciplinary studio practice of photogra-
phy, sculpture, installation and video. Her work Photos courtesy of Katherine Knight

122 I S E A 2015
 and networked events. Daniels juxtaposes dis-
Steve Daniels parate knowledge systems and experiences in
an effort to reveal their underlying structures and
DEVICE FOR assumptions. Daniels has presented his work
T H E E L I M I N AT I O N at numerous galleries and festivals including

O F WO N D E R the Ontario Science Centre, InterAccess, Future

Sonic (UK), Bay Area Maker Faire, Elektra (QC),
Steel, aluminum, brass, motors,
Subtle Technologies, Common Pulse, MACHines
electronics, pen and paper
show at the Centre des Arts, Enghien Les Bain
device: 50 x 30 x 45 cm
apparatus: variable (FR), Eveil/Alive/Despertar (SESC Santana, Sao
installed dimensions: 4 x 2 x 1.3m Paulo, Brazil) and TEI’15 (Stanford, USA). Steve is
height of paper: 1m currently associate professor and Director of the
(2012 - 2015) New Media program at Ryerson University.

Device for the Elimination of Wonder tells a

Sisyphus-like tale of our preoccupation with
mapping, grids and ordering the world. A simple
kinetic system obsessed with quantiication, it is
ultimately a feedback-loop manifesting itself as a
machine. The device rolls back and forth along
the length of two parallel cables that span the gal-
lery and selects a location to begin taking mea-
surements. It then lowers a metallic bob until it
makes contact with the surface, measures this
height and then represents this measurement as
a grey scale on a page, inally dropping the page
with its graphic data to the loor below. Eventually
the paper sheets build up in height while the tone
of the image lightens, reducing the gradation
from dark gray to none at all. It then moves on
to the next spot. Daniels has created a mechani-
cal device that instrumentalizes the gallery, and in
turn reiies our obsession with data. With objec-
tivity ixed within the system the device stops,
measures, exhausts its interest in the site, and
then moves on. Its behavior could be considered
the antithesis of liveliness, nonetheless the irony
of the narrative is inescapable as we witness the Photos courtesy of the artist
futility of the device’s mission.
Steve Daniels uses electronics and com-
munication technologies to create hardware
agents, kinetic sculptures, ubiquitous spaces

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 123
 the luminous lines of the dwelling, and its glow-
Judith Doyle ing scaffold, suggest anything but. As the building

PHANTOM HOUSE slowly revolves it becomes a monument of light, a

heartrending memento mori to Doyle’s loss.
Memory architecture with hand-drawn and
streaming media textures, built in the SecondLife
virtual world by artist Judith Doyle, with technical
assistance from Ian Murray (2010)

Phantom House eerily hovers in space. A glow-

ing, ghostly testament to Judith Doyle’s late par-
ents, it is a memory architecture constructed in
SecondLife virtual world. After the sudden death
of the artists’ mother and father in 2003, Doyle
built models of her family home in game engines
and virtual environments. Needless to say, this
work embodies a response analogous to the
experience of phantasmagoria, magic-lantern
performances emerging in the 1790s and early
1800s wherein the technological origins of ani-
mated spectral images were concealed from
an audience kept in total darkness for extended
periods of time prior to any performance. With
its phantasmagoric quality, Phantom House sits
between many worlds; 19th century spectral the-
atre versus 21st century online interaction; irst
life versus SecondLife; present versus absent
bodies. Embedded within a 1950s tableau at the
Museum of Vancouver this virtual representation
captures the temporal distances inferred by a Photo courtesy of the artist.
suburban home loating in in the nocturnal upper
atmosphere of SecondLife. Doyle has referred
to this work as an architecture of forgetting but

124 I S E A 2015
 Judith Doyle’s work includes performance,
Judith Doyle ilm, publication and media installation. In 1978
she co-founded the seminal artists teleculture
C ROW PA N E L network Worldpool active in Toronto and New
Interactive media installation, depth camera sensor York, using fax and slow-scan video for proto-
and programming developed using Processing, in
Internet exchange and collaboration. Her ilms
collaboration with Chao Feng, with programmers
and media projects show internationally. Active
Nick Beirne and Naoto Hieda. (2015)
at Funnel Experimental Film Centre, A Space,
Doyle transposes this procedural aesthetic evi- Art Metropole and Impulse Magazine, Judith is
dent in Phantom House onto her more recent currently a Professor in Integrated Media in the
responsive large-scale media installations. With Faculty of Art at OCAD University. She is the 2015
Crow Panel, Doyle and her PointCloud series Artist in Residence at the Telus Toronto Innovation
collaborators Chao Feng, along with program- Centre. GestureCloud is the name of her collabor-
mers Nick Beirne and Naoto Hieda, expose real- ative formation with Beijing-based artist Fei Jun.
time and allegorical aspects of a space where
the movement of crows intersects with that of
people. It draws attention up to birds occupy-
ing vertical cities, and their emerging forms of
urban intelligence. Audience members emerge as
surface impressions, appearing in and inluenc-
ing a hybrid environment of crow forms eliciting
a type of human-animal interaction facilitated by
algorithmic agents. For Doyle and her team Crow
Panel is a speculative “mirror machine”1 provid-
ing an opportunity for the public to become par-
ticipating agents of disruption (Marchessault). It
both displays and cloaks igures in the surface
impressions it generates, supporting post-human
embodiment. Using depth cameras and original
software, Judith Doyle and her collaborators on
the PointCloudseries investigate the characteris-
tics of physical movement in what has become a
disruptive documentary medium. They invite us
as participants into an admixture of points of light
as gestural form offering up whole body render-
ings rather than the harsh reality of high deinition
we repeatedly encounter in contemporary media.
1 “Mirror Machine: Video and Identity”
2006 YYZ Books anthology, edited by Janine Photos courtesy of the artist.
Marchessault. The term is appropriated to
describe the structure of the PointCoud depth
camera/projection system.

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 125
 Kate Hartman is an artist, technologist, and
Kate Hartman educator whose work spans the ields of physical
G O - G O G L OV E S computing, wearable electronics, and conceptual
art. She is the author of the book “Make: Wearable
Gloves, conductive fabric and thread, electronic
components including Pic chip, control panel Electronics,” was a speaker at TED 2011, and her
(14x4x3.5”), Computer & monitor running a work is included in the permanent collection of
program created in Processing, sampled images the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Hartman
from 1960s McCall Needlework & Crafts is based in Toronto at OCAD University where she
magazine. (2005) is Associate Professor of Wearable and Mobile
Technology in the Digital Futures program and
Go-Go Gloves situates itself within Lively Objects Director of the Social Body Lab, a research and
as an interactive diversion for the MoV public, development team dedicated to exploring body-
affording a chance to retreat to a period when centric technologies in the social context.
inhibitions were abandoned and governments
were on alert. Go-Go Gloves are wearable, elec-
tronic gloves that interface with a program cre-
ated in Processing. An electronic puppet show of
sorts, the user is able to control the movement of
the dancers onscreen by touching thumb to in-
gertip. A control panel allows the user to select
characters, backgrounds, and music. With images
drawn from 1960s McCall Needlework & Crafts
magazine, Hartman pays homage to the history
of women’s “hobbies” acknowledging the domes-
tic antecedents to the craftivism that has rein-
vigorated the “domestic arts.” Blending textiles
and physical computing, Go-Go Gloves typiies
Hartman’s approach to technology and it’s poten-
tial. Being an early interactive work for the artist
the work exhibits a sincerity characteristic of DIY
culture. Deeply concerned with the user experi-
ence, the work is meant for two – with the slight-
est movement, two strangers can have a virtual
dance party on screen. While not a wearable as
such, Go-Go Gloves predicted Hartman’s current
investigations in the Social Body Lab where she
conducts research into wearables that explore
body-centric technologies in the social context. Photos courtesy of the artist.

126 I S E A 2015
 The Social Body Lab is a research and
Kate Hartman prototyping based at OCAD University dedi-
& The Social Body Lab cated to exploring body-centric technologies in
the social context. The Social Body Lab team
M O N A RC H that created Monarch includes lab director
Electronic components including Arduino Micro, Kate Hartman and research assistants Jackson
Muscle Sensor V3, servo motors, and custom McConnell, Hillary Predko, Boris Kourtoukov,
printed circuit board; 3D printed servo mounts,
Izzie Colpitts-Campbell, Alexis Knipping, and
armature wire, digitally printed cotton poplin, laser-
cut leather. (2014-2015) Rickee Charbonneau in collaboration with Jamie
Sherman from Intel.
Monarch is a recent lab project intended to func-
tion as body augmentation as a means to exter-
nalize the user’s emotional state. Monarch was
created as part of the Prosthetic Technologies
of Being project, conducted in collaboration with
Intel Research. The primary aim was to explore
and prototype wearable technologies that feel like
a visceral extension of self. Wing-like structures
positioned on the wearer’s shoulders expand and
contract in response to the tensing and relaxing
of the wearer’s bicep. It serves as an extension
or augmentation of body language emulating the
instinctual signals of animals. Hartman empha-
sizes human-human interaction with her respon-
sive apparatuses, but there is another relational
possibility here, one where humans become
sensitized to the externalized signals of animals
living in the wild. In the inal paragraph of Donna
Haraway’s When Species Meet the primatologist
states “Animals are everywhere full partners in
worlding, in becoming with” (301). Hartman pro-
vides the mechanism for insight into animal being,
and thus into worlding. By allowing her user to
move beyond predictable reactive technologies
to perform animal potentialities Hartman has Photos courtesy of the artist.
implicated her user into the lively object, and in
doing so has created the possibility for empathy
between species cohabiting technoculture.

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 127
 interdisciplinary MFA in Art, Computer Science
Garnet Hertz and Engineering (2005), a PhD in Humanities

PHONE SAFE 2 (2009),

Computer
and postdoctoral
Science and
appointments
Informatics
in
(2010).
Steel and custom electronics, 70 x 40 x 50 cm.
Garnet Hertz holds a Canada Research Chair in
(2015)
Design and Media Arts at Emily Carr University of
In 1996, when former South African President Art and Design.
Thabo Mbeki stated “Half of humanity has not yet
made a phone call,” mobile technologies were not
the ubiquitous devices they are today. In his inves-
tigation of the origin of this often-stated truism,
media writer Clay Shirky found the penetration
of wireless technologies into the locations Mbeki
was likely referring to had increased exponentially
over the last two decades. “Between 1995 and
2000, the world’s population rose by about 8%.
Meanwhile, the number of land lines rose by 50%,
and the number of cellular subscribers by over
1000%.” Shirky’s argument was a means to argue
for the erosion of the digital divide. Paradoxically,
a fresh divide has evolved, one where humans
are increasingly separated from each other’s real
selves. Phone Safe 2 is a project by Garnet Hertz
that is a custom-built safety deposit box for indi-
viduals to voluntarily deposit mobile phones for a
short period of time in public space. Once depos-
ited, phones cannot be retrieved until the prede-
termined time. This project opposes the concept
that pervasive computing and mobile communi-
cation is good in all circumstances, disrupts the
standard low and use of communication technol-
ogies, and strives to help people create an envi-
ronment for face-to-face interaction.
Garnet Hertz’s multidisciplinary work Photos courtesy of the artist.
includes art objects, experimental product
designs and academic research, and argues that
the speculative and critically oriented methods of
the arts and humanities can be used to design
more evocative, thought-provoking and human-
oriented technologies. This work is informed by
his extensive experience in multiple disciplines.
His advanced training includes a BFA (1997), an

128 I S E A 2015
 the Integrated Media Program. Jones has exhib-
Simone Jones and Lance Winn ited her work at national and international venues

END OF EMPIRE and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts

in New York.
Kinetic sculpture/video installation,
Lance Winn’s personal work searches for
72 x 144 x 36 inches. (2011)
the language embedded in processes of repro-
duction. From painting to robotic projection and
Andy Warhol’s real-time eight hour ilm Empire three-dimensional modeling, he investigates a
(1964) heralded the onset of structural ilm as an poetics of construction that attempts to speak
artistic medium; since taken up by Michael Snow, to issues of mediation and technology. Winn
Anthony McCall and Douglas Gordon, among received his M.F.A from Cranbrook Academy of
others. Empire consists of an unadorned shot of Art with a concentration in painting. A professor
the Empire State Building and captures what was at the University of Delaware, he runs the M.F.A.
the ultimate symbol of the New York City skyline. program and is faculty in the Center for Material
Simone Jones and Lance Winn revisit Empire from Culture Study. Winn’s work has been shown in the
a post-9/11, post inancial-collapse perspective. U.S. and abroad and in 2007 was the subject of a
End of Empire is a custom-built, robotic projec- ive-year survey at the Freedman Gallery.
tion machine that projects a 14-minute video
inspired by Warhol’s ilm. The robot’s motorized
camera arm enables the frames’ movement and
projects a black-and-white video image of the
Empire State building across the gallery wall and
ceiling, and then reverses back to its original posi-
tion to eventually reveal its disappearance from
the skyline. Never seen in its entirety, the viewer
has to piece together their perception of the ilm
as it unfolds over time and across the physical
space of the gallery. The projection machine,
with its numerous progenitors – from 19th cen-
tury optical instruments to Edward Ihnatowicz’s
Senster – cheekily involves the audience who
must move around the machine to fully view the
image, thereby enrolling them in its forlorn search
for the absent skyscraper.
Simone Jones is a multidisciplinary artist
working with ilm, video, sculpture and electron-
ics. Her works question the nature of percep-
tion: she is interested in how we see and how we
translate what we see through various techniques
of representation. Jones graduated from the
Ontario College of Art (OCA) with a concentration
in Experimental Art and received her MFA from Photos courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
York University. Jones is an Associate Professor
of Art at OCAD University where she teaches in

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 129
 tion history includes the BALTIC Centre, Musée
Germaine Koh d’art contemporain de Montréal, Para/Site,
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Bloomberg SPACE,
T O P O G R A P H I C TA B L E The Power Plant, Seoul Museum of Art, Artspace
CNC-routered baltic birch plywood table top, steel Sydney, The British Museum, the Contemporary
frame, sensors and internet-connected electronics,
Art Gallery, Plug In ICA, Art Gallery of Ontario,
30 x 36 x 60 inches. (2013)
and the Liverpool, Sydney and Montréal bien-
nials. Koh was a recipient of the 2010 Shadbolt
Topographic Table is an uneasy piece of furniture, Foundation VIVA Award, and a inalist for the 2004
which disrupts notions of art and its behavior in Sobey Art Award.
the gallery. The CNC-routered plies of the thick CNC machining by Emily Carr University of
plywood tabletop recreate the contours of the Art + Design, metal fabrication by Alan Waldron
massive mountains north of Vancouver — an area / Ininite FX, 3D modelling by Hamza Vora, pro-
due for a catastrophic seismic event. This uncom- gramming by Gordon Hicks.
fortable surface is also emotionally on edge:
Internet-connected electronics embedded in the
frame shake the table in response to local vibra-
tion sensor input and Twitter news about earth-
quakes in the Vancouver and Paciic Northwest
area. Equating physical events and online chat-
ter, the piece suggests some interpenetration of
the two sensing systems. The represented region
is an earthquake-rich zone due to its proxim-
ity to the Juan de Fuca subduction fault off of
Vancouver Island. Germaine Koh’s Topographic
Table physically replicates the emotional state
of the province as it nervously awaits a mega-
thrust quake. Koh’s miniature landscape, with
its equally-diminished quavering condition, col-
lapses geologic and dialogic events to enchant-
ing effect. Like children, we are mesmerized by
the miniature world we are able to contemplate
from the safety of the gallery. Like many a pro-
phetic newscast, Topographic Table disrupts our
sense of comfort with the majestic mountainous
Vancouver skyline, although it succeeds in doing
so through aesthetic seduction rather than fear.
Based in Vancouver, Germaine Koh is a
visual artist, independent curator and partner in Photo 1: courtesy of the artist
the record label (weewerk). Her art is concerned Photo 2: courtesy of Scott Massey
with the signiicance of everyday actions, famil-
iar objects and common places. Her exhibi-

130 I S E A 2015
 the Canadian Art Bank, and the National Gallery
Norman White of Canada. For his robotic media work, he has

SPLISH SPLASH ONE

received prizes from La Vilette (1985) and Ars
Electronica (1990), and in 1995 he was awarded
Model-unit for a larger kinetic light mural the Petro Canada Prize for Interactive Media.
commissioned for the CBC building in Vancouver,
plexiglass, bulbs, electronics, 30 x 91 x 79 cm.
(1974)
Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Purchased
from the Electric Gallery, Toronto, VAG 74.84.

Splish Splash One is a prototype for a light

mural commissioned in 1974 by the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation for the foyer of its
Vancouver ofices. The mural simulates raindrops
falling randomly on the surface of a quiet pond.
Still functioning, Splish Splash Two dominates the
audience lounge at CBC, providing a simulated
natural environment for its users. The modest Photo by Rachel Topham courtesy of the Vancouver Art Gallery
Splish Splash One is just one of a number of art-
works dependent on a cellular automaton, a light/
logic grid in which each cell is programmed such
that it is off or on within its neighbourhood of cells
in order to create a pattern. John Conway’s Game Norman White
S P L I S H S P L A S H II
of Life (1970) exploited the evolutionary nature of
this particular automaton. Norman White, how-
ever, had produced a similar logic machine/art Aluminum, polycarbonate plastic, incandescent
work, First Tighten Up on the Drums, for his 1969 bulbs, and custom electronics, 8 x 40 ft. (1975)
submission to Some More Beginnings, the E.A.T.
exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. First Tighten Located in the CBC building, Vancouver.
Up on the Drums was a germinal electronic media
work for White, and Splish Splash One provides
a second iteration of White’s foray into cellular
automata. It is the irst of many works that explore
the wonder of basic electronics and, in this case,
offers the audience an enchanting experience as
they watch its hypnotic lickering surface.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Norman White
was raised in the area of Boston, Massachusetts
and attended Harvard University where he
obtained a BA in Biology. After moving to Toronto
in 1967, White was hired by Roy Ascott to teach
at the Ontario College of Art in 1975. His works Photo courtesy of the CBC Vancouver
can be found in public collections, including the
Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery,

L I V E LY O B J E C T S 131
BEYOND
THE TREES :
WALLPAPERS
IN DIALOGUE
WITH EMILY
CARR

Vancouver Art Gallery

Caitlin Jones
Diana Freundl

Beyond the Trees considers mediated represen- In addition to addressing the distinct archi-
tations of nature and the ways our perspectives tecture of the galleries, the works created for
shift between physical and virtual experiences. Beyond the Trees also refer to multiple subjects.
Both Vancouver-based collective WALLPAPERS Ludy’s cloud-like formations, Sassoon’s hyp-
(Nicolas Sassoon, Sara Ludy and Sylvain Sailly) notic pixelated patterns and Sailly’s hard-edge
and West Coast modernist Emily Carr invite us to objects evoke not only the wilderness of British
relect on their perceptions of British Columbia’s Columbia but also the manufactured, lat dis-
coastal landscape, the former through the use play of a computer screen. By representing this
of digitally animated patterns and the latter by duality, WALLPAPERS captures the command of
means of nuanced brushstrokes of line and the natural world as well as the effects of human
colour. In both, nature is viewed through powerful intervention within it.
aesthetic ilters. In contrast, a sizable selection of Emily Carr’s
WALLPAPERS is a collective founded in works are presented salon style and arranged
2011 by artists Sara Ludy (b. 1980), Nicolas according to her use of formal elements—par-
Sassoon (b. 1981) and Sylvain Sailly (b. 1983). ticularly those of line, shape and colour. These
Their artworks are computer-generated animated mounted clusters of oil paintings and works on
patterns that exist online at www.w-a-l-l-p-a-p- paper place an emphasis on the rhythms cap-
e-r-s.net. Exhibited online, the work takes form tured in her landscape imagery, allowing us to
as a catalogue of digital patterns, with each art- both view the individual works and see them as a
work created by an individual artist and displayed cohesive whole. Carr’s revered landscape paint-
full-screen on its own URL. For Beyond the ings have become emblematic of this region’s
Trees, WALLPAPERS have produced an immer- forests; presented en masse, they emulate the
sive environment that both mimics and experi- display of WALLPAPERS’ projections.
ments with the scale and primary forms of nature. Beyond the Trees compares two diverse
Responding to the architecture of the gallery, visual art practices. While the materials and medi-
their new site-speciic works create contrasting ums of these artists are dissimilar, each uses pat-
experiences. In the irst room, a monumental out- tern and movement to articulate the natural world
door environment is created through movement in a way that creates pictorial landscapes and
and imagery. In the second, a more conined and draws attention to how one experiences nature in
intimate space combines subtle movements with a constructed setting.
deined textures, patterns and frames. The treat- Beyond the Trees is the ifth in a series of In
ment of these two galleries speaks to the ubiq- Dialogue with Carr exhibitions organized by the
uity of digital forms in contemporary life, while the Vancouver Art Gallery.
content of the animations relects the power of the
natural world.

133
5600K
TEMPERATURE
OF WHITE

New Media Gallery

Sarah Joyce
Gordon Duggan

5600K refers to the colour temperature of a In Light Reading; 1500 Cinematic Explosions
deined, white light that has become a standard Elizabeth McAlpine has mined the cinematic realm
in ilm production, used to replicate the appear- for ilm explosions. The work links the real and
ance of natural light at the brightest time of day. It unreal; explosions created in real time, ilmed and
is understood as both real and false: a verisimili- then ictionalized to become a cinematic product.
tude, a simulacrum. McAlpine appropriates and deconstructs 1500
The manipulation of light in visceral, illusion- cinematic narratives to produce a single, uniied
ary and poetic ways, the attempt to dismantle work, condensing the explosions into a tight loop
boundaries, space, structures, bodies and per- that becomes more volatile and pure in its totality.
ception itself, the fascination with inding new The result is a potent assemblage of white noise &
languages of visual experience...all are of par- perpetually explosive, white light.
ticular interest to the three artists in this exhibi- In the circular cage of the Neon Circle, sci-
tion: Carsten Höller, Gunda Förster and Elizabeth entist-turned-artist Carsten Höller has created
McAlpine. a place of visceral engagement and perceptual
Each work in the exhibition references transformation. As with all his works Holler pushes
both the disruptive and formative potential of us to the limit; the body, the brain, the eye…chal-
light; to penetrate and affect the physical body lenging our ability to understand what we are see-
and the surrounding space. In adjoining rooms, ing and to actually perceive and react within a pro-
large installations by Carsten Höller and Gunda foundly disruptive environment. The viewer enters
Förster each present rotational movement that a space apart; an introspective, uncertain, self-
is performative and dislocating. Hanging in the questioning space. The circular structure is alive
space between, creating a physical obstacle and with constantly shifting permutations of transmit-
alluding to transformative events, is a work by ted white light, dislocating our senses and chan-
Elizabeth McAlpine. neling our focus inward. The iterative pulse diverts
In a dark gallery Gunda Förster presents us from the fact that we have placed ourselves at
Circle, a single 1000W white light that loats on centre stage and have become at once performer,
a endlessly circling pendulum. This light is com- captive and test subject.
pelling and spellbinding, as light in the dark often New Media Gallery is the civic gallery for the
is, perhaps recalling something of our originat- City of New Westminster. The gallery is devoted
ing relationship with a vital light source at night to bringing together the inest new media art from
and its natural link to the uncanny. The pendu- around the world and disseminating it through
lum describes a slow circular movement that innovative, engaging and high quality exhibitions
circumnavigates and herds the viewer, forming and programmes. Directors + Curators Sarah
an inscribed enclosure that is distinctly different Joyce and Gordon Duggan have worked at Tate
from the uncertain external zone. In the centre the and Lisson galleries and have extensive interna-
viewer becomes a compulsory performer, while tional experience in the area of electronic media art.
outside a looming shadow dance takes place, the
result of light disrupted by physical mass.

5600 K 135
Carsten Höller
N E O N C I RC L E
2001, (As shown at Casey Kaplan, NY, 2001)
Aluminium, 186 neon tubes, electro-distributor
single-phase transformer, computer, cables.
230 x 460 x 460 cm
Unique
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle
Gift of William and Ruth True
© Carsten Höller.
Photography © Emma Eastwick

Carsten Höller (1961, Belgium) applies his train- Gunda Förster

ing as a scientist in his work as an artist. He has
C I RC L E
shown internationally for two decades, including
Electronic Light Installation:
major installations at Tate Modern, MASS MoCA,
1000 W light bulb and motorized lamp
The Double Club, London, Guggenheim Museum, in slow and continuous circular motion
2009. Solo exhibitions include Fondazione (2004)
Prada, Milan (2000); ICA Boston (2003); Musée
d’Art Contemporain, Marseille (2004); Kunsthaus Gunda Förster (1967, Berlin) studied at the
Bregenz, Austria (2008); Museum Boijmans Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. She has received
Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010); Hamburger numerous awards and grants, including the 1st
Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2011), German Art Prize; a DAAD grant for study in the
New Museum, NY (2011), TBA 21, Vienna (2014), U.S.; the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff grant; the 2003 H.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2014–15). W. & J. Hector Art Prize, Mannheim. Exhibitions in
Venice Biennale (2015), Major Solo Exhibition Germany and worldwide. She was guest professor
Hayward Gallery, London (2015). Represented by at Leibniz University, Hannover and Professor of
Gagosian Gallery. Art at the University of Applied Science, Wismar.
She is the irst recipient of the H. W. & J. Hector
Art Prize awarded by the Kunsthalle Mannheim.
She lives and works in Berlin.

136 I S E A 2015
Credits: Courtesy of the Artist
and Gunda Förster Studio, Berlin.

Elizabeth McAlpine
LIGHT READING:
1500 C I N E M AT I C
EXPLOSIONS
Video + Sound installation on CRT monitor,
1min. Loop (2008)

Elizabeth McAlpine (1973) is London-based. Her Credits: Courtesy of the Artist, Laura Bartlett Gallery,
practice spans video art, ilm, installation and London and Laurel Gitlen, New York.

photography. She studied at Goldsmiths College

and Slade School of Fine Art. Her work often
deploys anachronistic technologies. McAlpine
has exhibited in solo shows at Laura Bartlett
Gallery, London; Laura Gitlen, New York; Eastside
Projects, Birmingham; Art Statements, Art Basel;
SPACEX, Exeter; and Ballina Arts Centre, Ireland.
And in group shows at Spike Island, Bristol;
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln,
MA, USA; Voorkamer, Lier, Belgium and more.
She is co-founder/director of PILOT, a live archive
for artists/curators, London. McAlpine is rep-
resented by Laura Bartlett, London and Laurel
Gitlen, NY.

137
ALL IS
HERE FROM
NOW ON

F U RVA U LT
A L S C O L A U N D RY
Khan Lee with HolyHum
ALL IS HERE
F RO M N OW O N
Site specific sound installation (2014)

This work by artist Khan Lee has been developed From Above 1979, Julianna Barwick, Damien
as a site speciic installation inside a mysterious Jurado, Frog Eyes, Porcelain Raft and many more
vault at the ALSCO laundry facility that functioned and has performed at notable festivals such as All
for 50 years as a place to clean and store furs. Tomorrow’s Parties (London), Primavera Sound
The vault has never before been opened to the (Barcelona), Primavera Festival (Portugal) and
public. The work is a multi-channel original sound Sled Island (Calgary). He has also presented artis-
track composed by Andrew Lee of HolyHum and tic works of music at the Vancouver Art Gallery,
recorded in collaboration with HolyHum. the Centre for Performance Research in New York
Khan Lee was born in Seoul, Korea. He City, and Kunstradio in Vienna.
studied architecture at Hong-Ik University, Seoul,
Korea, and studied ine art at Emily Carr Institute
of Art and Design. He works in performance,
media, and sculpture. His practice involves
experimentation with form and process in order to
express inherent relationships between material
and immaterial content. He is a founding mem-
ber of artist collective Intermission and a member
of Instant Coffee. His work has been exhibited
nationally and internationally. Lee lives and works
in Vancouver. HolyHum is the new musical project
of multidisciplinary artist Andrew Lee.
Over the past 15 years Andrew Lee has
toured extensively across North America and
Europe with In Medias Res (File Under: Music)
and Siskiyou (Constellation Records). He has
shared the stage with Kurt Vile, Cursive, Death

139
QUOTING
THE QUOTIDIAN

Wil Aballe Art Projects

( WA A P )
Wil Aballe

Many of the works in this show use speciic In time for ISEA2015, a number of electronic
objects, or readymades, as a material starting or digital-based works will be on display, inter-
point. Readymades make for interesting material spersed with works of more traditional media.
for artmaking as they previously were developed Daniel Kent, an artist residing in Brooklyn, NY,
with human user interaction as a key consider- will exhibit Articulating Blind Movement #1, a
ation in their creation, necessary innovation that sculpture motorized to humorous effect and witty
have grown familiar in the day to day. sculptures derived from iPhone forms. Vancouver-
These objects are also representative of based Nicolas Sassoon is considering exhibiting
the quotidian, the most ordinary and habitually a physical object translation of his animated gif
unnoticed. They are stand-ins for lives built up moire pattern works. Marisa Olson, also from New
habitually in daily experience, by the distillation York City, will be exhibiting two works from her
of ordinary expectations of the world. The quotid- Time Capsule series, works that have been aptly
ian is also a necessary condition for surprise. The described as media archaeology.
works in this exhibition deviate from the ordinary;
the result is unfamiliarity, sometimes wonder,
sometimes a new understanding. These artists
embrace the paradox of seeing the everyday for
its commonness, while imbuing their works with
latent possibilities for transformation to further
human experience.

141
Dustin Brons
L AY V I TAT I O N
AT T E M P T #3
video (2013)

06/22/13
video (2013)

Dustin Brons is an artist in Vancouver. His work

is mostly performance based, taking the form of
videos and other documentation. He has par- Barry Doupé
ticipated in exhibitions in Vancouver, Chicago,
THALÉ
Los Angeles and Mexico City, and he performed
at the 2013 LIVE International Performance Art
Computer Animation (2009)
Biennale in Vancouver. Recently, he took part in
the thematic residency Confuse the Cat at the Barry Doupé’s Thalé experiments with the phe-
Banff Centre, Alberta. He holds a BFA from the nomenology of light and colour through iber-optic
University of British Columbia, and is an MFA stu- lower arrangements. Doupé’s animations are
dent at the University of California, San Diego. inspired by the Thale Cress plant, which is com-
monly used in biological mutation experiments.
His rotating electronic loras, which resemble
neon lights, sex toys and ireworks, glow in the
dark digital void. - Amy Kazymerchyk, Fabulous
Festival of Fringe Film
Barry Doupé (b. 1982 Victoria, BC) is a
Vancouver based artist primarily working with
computer animation. He graduated from the Emily
Carr University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Media
Arts majoring in animation. His ilms use imagery
and language derived from the subconscious;
developed through writing exercises and auto-
matic drawing. He often creates settings within
which a characters’ self-expression or action is
challenged and thwarted, resulting in comic, vio-
lent and poetic spectacles.His ilms have been
screened throughout Canada and Internationally
including the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Ann Arbor,
Michigan), International Film Festival Rotterdam
(Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Anthology Film
Archives (NY, New York), Lyon Contemporary Art
Museum (Lyon, France), Pleasure Dome (Toronto,

142 I S E A 2015
ON), MOCCA (Toronto, ON), Whitechapel Gallery pointless jokes in his work. He has gained recog-
(London, UK), Centre Pompidou (Paris, France) nition for challenging the notion of the commer-
and the Tate Modern (London, UK). cial viability of the artist. He is a co-founder and
working member of Bazaar Teens, an art collec-
tive whose sole purpose is purportedly to “look
good and feel good”. This maxim manifests itself
in works that are either immaterial or sold at an
immoral or irrational cost to the buyer. He also
works as both a graphic and industrial designer,
creating products, books and other artifacts that
have been mass manufactured and internation-
ally distributed. He is currently working on a book
about Diogenes the Cynic.

Daniel Kent
A R T I C U L AT I N G B L I N D
M OV E M E N T #1
Venetian Blinds, Motor, Power (2014)
Dimension variable

I NO FUN
Acrylic, plastic, fake velvet, Pall Mall (2013)
12 x 8 x 0.37 in

Daniel Kent, also known as Exotic Maple, is a

Canadian multimedia artist located in Brooklyn,
New York. He has exhibited work internationally
and is known for reveling in immature humor and

QUOTING THE QUOTIDIAN 143

Marisa Olson Maya Beaudry
CODENAME ONYX
( F RO M T H E S E R I E S
Maya Beaudry is a Vancouver-based artist
who holds a BFA in sculpture from Emily Carr
TIME CAPSULES) University of Art and Design. In 2013 she founded
Sunset Terrace, a shared studio and exhibition
Blackberry Bold 9700, gold spraypaint (2016)
space in East Vancouver. Her work with the space
TIME CAPSULES is in constant dialogue with her studio practice,
Cassette tape installation, gold spraypaint, both of which employ the affective qualities of
dimensions variable (2016) disparate materials to explore the psychological
implications of interior spaces. She is the recipi-
Marisa Olson’s interdisciplinary work has been ent of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art CD
exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Howe Scholarship, and has shown her work in
Tate(s) Modern + Liverpool, the Nam June Paik Art Vancouver, Montreal and Berlin.
Center, British Film Institute, Sundance Film Festival,
Performa Biennial; commissioned and collected
by the Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Vanessa Brown
Houston Center for Photography, Experimental
Television Center, and PS122; and reviewed in Vanessa Brown is a Vancouver-based artist who
Artforum, Frieze, the New York Times, Liberation, works predominantly in sculpture and paint-
the Guardian, Art21, the Globe & Mail, Interview ing. She graduated with a BFA from Emily Carr
Magazine, Folha de Sao Paolo, and elsewhere. She University in 2013 and was the recipient of the
is currently Visiting Critic at RISD. Chancellor’s Award. She recently participated in
The Universe and Other Systems residency at the
Banff Centre for the Arts (2014) and has exhibited
throughout Canada and in Germany.

Scott Billings

Scott Billings is a visual artist and designer based

in Vancouver. His art practice centers on issues
of animality, mobility, and cinematic spectator-
ship. Through sculpture and video installation,
Scott’s work examines how the apparatus itself
can reveal both the mechanisms of causality and
its own dormant animality. Billings has exhib-
ited nationally and internationally including New
York, Seattle, Toronto, Winnipeg, Prague, and
China. He holds an MFA from UBC, a BFA from
Emily Carr University, and a BASc in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

144 I S E A 2015
Manuel Correa Nicolas Sassoon

Manuel Correa is an artist originally from Nicolas Sassoon is a French-born artist living and
Medellin, Colombia currently working towards working between Biarritz, France and Vancouver,
his BFA in Film & Video at Emily Carr University in BC. Nicolas Sassoon is currently exhibiting
Vancouver, Canada. Correa is a founding member at the Vancouver Art Gallery and has previ-
of the ilm production company + art collective ously exhibited his work at the Victoria & Albert
Atelier Bolombolo. Correa’s artworks have been Museum, Today Art Museum, New Museum, 319
exhibited internationally at venues in Colombia, Scholes, Eyebeam, May Gallery & Residency,
Canada and Austria. Contemporary Art Gallery, Charles H.Scott
Gallery, Western Front, PRETEEN Gallery,
the Centre d’Art Bastille, Arti et Amicitiae, MU
Daniel Jefferies Eindhoven, the Berlin Fashion Week and the New-
York Fashion Week. Nicolas is a member of the
Daniel Jefferies is a painter living and work- online collective Computers Club and a founder
ing in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He was born in of the collective W-A-L-L-P-A-P-E-R-S.
Stockholm, Sweden in 1988. He received his BFA
from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design
in 2010, and subsequently received his MFA in Kirsten Stoltman
Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute
in 2012. He has shown in Israel, the Bay Area, Kirsten Stoltman is an artist living in Ojai, California
New York, and Vancouver. In October of 2013 who makes work about being uncomfortable and
he founded Field Contemporary, a gallery in just trying to it in, or not. Her work has been inlu-
Vancouver, B.C., with a focus to exhibit the work enced by her Midwestern roots, self-deprecating
of local and international emerging artists. and humorous nature and feminism. She has
exhibited work In Abstract America, New Painting
and Sculpture, Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K.,
Natasha McHardy Bitch is The New Black, Honor Fraser Gallery,
Los Angeles, CA., Think Pink, Gaalak Gallery,
Natasha McHardy received a BFA and MFA Palm Beach, FL., Cut-Ups, Fotograiska Collage,
from the University of British Columbia and has Center for Photography, Stockholm SE., Out
exhibited her work nationally and internationally, of Focus, Sala Pelaires, Mallorca, Spain. She
including at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Centre A recently screened her new video in the group
Centre for Contemporary Art, the Shanghai Art show Psychosexual, curated by Scott Hunter at
Museum, Or Gallery, the Belkin Satellite Gallery, the Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL. Her most
and the Helen Pitt Gallery. She was recipient of recent solo shows, Rising From The Ashes of
the BC Binning Drawing Award in 2001. Your Mind, was at the Brennan and Grifin Gallery
New York and I AM SO HAPPY at Emma Gray
HQ in Los Angeles. She is also included in the
book, Concrete Comedy: An Alternative History
of Twentieth-Century Comedy by David Robbins
for the video, “Self-Relecting.”

QUOTING THE QUOTIDIAN 145

ARCTICNOISE

ARTICNOISE is funded by Mobilizing Inuit Cultural

Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts and
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
We acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts, which last year
invested $153 million to bring the arts to
Canadians throughout the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du
Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil
a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre
de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et
grunt gallery des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Britt Gallpen
Yasmin Nurming-Por Geronimo Inutiq
A RC T I C N O I S E
ARCTICNOISE is a media installation that draws Electronically processed video file (2015)
on archival ilm footage and sound materials
sourced from the Isuma Archive at the National
Gallery of Canada, as well as sound and ilm Geronimo Inutiq considers himself amongst other
materials from the artist’s personal collection, on- things a self-taught and independent electronic
site research obtained from a trip to Igloolik, and & electro-acoustic musician, and multi-media
other ethnographical material. Conceived as an artist. Having been exposed to strong traditional
Indigenous response to Glenn Gould’s celebrated Inuit cultural elements in his youth, as well as the
composition “The Idea of the North”, (https:// exciting worlds of modern art, and broadcast &
w w w.youtube.com /watch?v= 3MeTImO tqYc) media through close members of his kin, he has
Inutiq will appropriate Gould’s piece as a musical been able to weave those reference points into his
score, paired with new voices and imagery to pro- practice in innovative and crafty ways – allowing
duce a layered and multi-vocal work. The project him to create on his own accord original works,
folds into Inutiq’s larger practice of his alter-ego, and enter in contract with a wide variety of clients
madeskimo that draws on the use of instruments, and partners seeking cultural content. Guided by
digital and analogue synthesizers, as well as the the notion that creative personal expression is a
remixing and processing of samples from a large very subjective and individual experience, he is
variety of sources—including traditional Inuit, interested in the dialogue that emerges between
Aboriginal, modern electronic and urban music— that individual and increasingly large and com-
in order to create an experimental platform. plex inter-related circles of socially constructed
At its crux, ARCTICNOISE intends to initi- systems of meaning.
ate conversations between various communities, Image detail: Herve Paniaq – Igloolik elder.
Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and to provoke Source: “Qapirangajuq: Le savoir inuit et les
thoughtful exchange about the roles of Inuit oral- changements climatiques,” Isuma Distribution
ity and materiality in a post-colonial space within International, 2010.
the context of new media artwork. New media,
with its appropriative and collage-like nature, is
employed as a speciic strategy to foster a multi-
vocal and multi-generational approach to these
sensitive issues. The hope is that by reframing
archival sources alongside contemporary tech-
nologies and materials, insightful and affective
connections will emerge. As a multimedia work,
ARCTICNOISE aims to re-purpose past Inuit
visual and sound media in an attempt to conlate
temporalities of past and present with the aims
of repurposing and mobilizing understandings of
All images and soundtrack copyright artist Geronimo Inutiq.
Inuit art aesthetics.

147
TOGGLE
Brian McBay

221A
neverhitsend
TOGGLE
Browser plugin (2015)

Toggle is a customized browser plug-in that

allows users to modify or overwrite any website.
A text or web installation might be installed on a
bank’s homepage, for example, or on a particular
news site or blog. The collective would then invite
‘digital fellows’ such as artists, activists and writ-
ers to write critical texts, make poetic interven-
tions, artworks, interviews etc. Any visitor who
has installed the plug-in, which will be available
via 221A’s website, will be able to toggle between
versions of the site’s original content and that pro-
duced or selected by participating digital fellow.
Toggle creates a metapage on top of any
existing web page. The plugin interface allows
users to upload content in the form of text, hyper-
links, and images. To use grafiti terminology: you
can, like, tag any website.
neverhitsend is a Los Angeles-based col-
lective that performatively researches commu-
nications ideology, with a particular focus on
issues involving collective authorship, privacy,
and anonymity.

149
MARAYA :
SISYPHEAN
CART
Brian McBay

The project is presented at 221A’s exhibition

room located in Chinatown, Vancouver, where it
is undergoing intensive neighbourhood gentrii-
cation and experiencing crude orientalist market-
ing campaigns that add to the ongoing crisis of
affordability and cultural homogenization.
221A gratefully acknowledges the support
of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia Arts
Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and our

221A generous donors and volunteers.

M. Simon Levin,
Henry Tsang, Glen Lowry
M A R AYA :
SISYPHEAN CART
Performance, exhibition (2015)

Maraya: Sisyphean Cart is a mobile ‘sousveil- planned urban landscape that in turn relects the
lance’ cart that conducts a site-speciic partici- design and desire of lifestyle and capital that is so
patory spatial investigation of Vancouver’s False luid and mobile in today’s globalized economies.
Creek and the Dubai Marina. It premiered at the The cart itself, and signiicantly the pulling of it,
20th International Symposium on Electronic Art invokes the spectre of labour – purposeful walk-
(ISEA) in Dubai in November 2014, and completes ing as a form of resistance to readily consumed
its second leg for ISEA 2015 in Vancouver. This images of idealized leisure – and the Sisyphean
custom-designed hand-drawn cart is mounted weight of this vision.
with an automated pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera Meaning mirror or relection in Arabic,
and pulled along the both waterfront seawall Maraya focuses on the re-appearance of
paths. Imagery produced by the skyscraper-fac- Vancouver’s False Creek in the Arabian desert
ing camera will provide alternative perspectives as the Dubai Marina. The Sisyphean Cart is the
on this built environment, from vantage points culmination of an ongoing investigation of these
that intentionally torque a conventional street- large-scale urban developments that share the
view perspective. Through a custom designed same architects, engineers and urban planners
program, the PTZ camera searches for connec- by the Vancouver-based collaborative team of
tions, similarities and anomalies, generatively artists M. Simon Levin and Henry Tsang and cul-
remixing its HD video capture with imagery from tural theorist/writer Glen Lowry. Previous projects
its doppelganger. Archetypal architectural forms by the Maraya project have included exhibitions at
surround the camera, relecting the master- the Museum of Vancouver, ISEA2014 in Dubai, Art

151
Dubai, Centre A, Vancouver International Centre affordable housing, public amenities and usabil-
for Contemporary Asian Art, outdoor projections ity and the importance of growing civic involve-
and installations, public talks and walks, and an ment. We ask, what is missing in this spatial col-
interactive Online Platform (marayaprojects.com). lusion of urban mega developments, real estate
The neighbourhoods of False Creek rep- speculation and city planning? Is the promise
resent a new form of urbanism, heralded by of the livable city another marketing ploy to lure
architecture critic Trevor Boddy and others as tourist dollars and the capricious low of interna-
Vancouverism, a homegrown response to an out- tional investment? Set amidst the false “green” of
moded Manhattanism. Indeed, it was the transfor- Vancouver and the genuine “bling” of Dubai, the
mation of the post-Expo’86 lands that attracted Sisyphean Cart relects the desires of these cit-
the attention of Dubai-based EMAAR Properties ies to compete for attention on the world stage,
to realize a new version of False Creek in the upstaging the local inhabitants in the search for
Arabian Desert. As a result, Vancouver’s tow- global capital.
ers of glass and steel set amongst urban water-
fronts have become synonymous with an emerg-
ing global city built for and populated by newly
mobile middle classes from the Middle East and
Asia. Against this backdrop, the Sisyphean Cart
functions as a foil that challenges the audience to
consider the vital social processes that are lost
behind the proliferation of glass and steel facades.
Cities as apparently distant and disparate as
Vancouver and Dubai have become key sites in
unfolding the narrative of neo-liberal mobilities.
The historic low of ideas, people and money
between Vancouver to Dubai is a story that binds
developers and planners to the goals of capital;
it chronicles a zealous faith in returns on invest-
ment—rather than addressing concerns around

M A R AYA 153
NEW TEXT :
Literary and Artistic
Explorations into
What It Means
To Read, Write,
And Create

We appreciate the support of the Electronic

Literature Organization for its help with promot-
Goldcorp Centre ing the event and Washington State University
Vancouver for providing access to technology
for the Arts and research assistance.
Dene Grigar

Texts that move, respond to touch, are created Prey, disrupt cultural assumptions about both dig-
by bots, are evoked and performed through aug- ital and print-based books. Still others like Silvio
mented and virtual reality, that digitally remix print Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg’s Networked
works, extend print text to the digital medium or Optimization, three self-help books presented on
digital text into print environments – all speak to a Kindle with accompanying printed versions of
ways artists in the 21st century are questioning the text, offer a critique of tablets that purport to
assumptions about methods of production and “optimize” the reading experience.
rethinking notions of audience engagement with In essence, this exhibit asks, “What con-
textual objects like books and creative output like stitutes a text in the 21st century, and what are
literary art. the possibilities for reading, writing, and creating
New Text: Literary and Artistic Explorations texts when artists have both print and electronic
into What It Means to Read, Write, and Create, mediums to use as platforms of discovery?”
curated by Dene Grigar, builds on ISEA2015’s Certainly, the works demonstrate that the disrup-
theme of Disruption by looking at the way digital tion caused by digital technologies can result in
technologies disrupt text and notions of textual- provocative and compelling objects of study.
ity. Fifteen works created by 22 artists and artist The exhibit provides the opportunity to
teams have been selected for the exhibit. Some showcase new works by international artists
like Jody Zellen’s mobile app Spine Sonnet, which working at the intersection of literature, media art,
allows the viewer to produce unlimited iterations experimental writing, and technology in the ield
of a poem by interacting with the tablet interface, of electronic literature, and showcases artists
force the viewer to rethink the sonnet as closed from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Australia, the
poetic system. Others like Tiffany Sanchez and U.S., Canada, the UK, Italy, and Korea.
Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo’s hybrid book environment,

155
 Abraham Avnisan is an experimental writer
Abraham Avnisan and new media artist whose work is situated at

C O L L O C AT I O N S the intersection of image, text, and code. He has

presented his work at the 2015 &NOW Conference
(2015) of Innovative Writing, the 2014 Electronic
Literature Organization Conference, the Museum
Collocations is an interactive work of experi- of Contemporary Art Chicago’s Word Weekend
mental writing designed for tablet computers. event, and in the group exhibition MEDIA
It appropriates two key texts from Niels Bohr FUTURES at Sullivan Galleries. His work has
and Albert Einstein’s historic debates about the been published in Stonecutter, The Poetry Project
complementary relationship between position Newsletter, and Drunken Boat, among others. He
and momentum on the one hand, and determi- holds an M.F.A in Poetry from Brooklyn College
nacy and indeterminacy on the other. In quan- and an M.F.A. in Art and Technology Studies
tum mechanics that relationship is mediated by from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
an experimental apparatus through which the where he received the New Artists Society Merit
experimenter observes the phenomenon in ques- Scholarship. He is the recipient of the Rosen and
tion. In Collocations, the tablet computer is that Edes Foundation Semi-Finalist Fellowship for
experimental apparatus, and the user’s manipula- Emerging Artists.
tion of its position in space allows certain poetic
texts to emerge at the expense of others. As the
user moves the device, certain words from within
Bohr and Einstein’s original texts begin to vibrate,
becoming highlighted and forming poetic sub-
texts. Striking a delicate balance between com-
pletely predetermined and randomly generated
texts, these poems embody the fundamental
indeterminacy of matter. At the intersection of sci-
ence, art, language and code, Collocations pos-
its a new quantum poetics that disrupts classical
notions of textuality and offers new possibilities
for reading.

156 I S E A 2015
 Brad Bouse is a developer interested in the
Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse creative applications of code. He has a degree in
ilm production from the University of Southern
WHISPERING California and began his career working in visual
GA L L E R I E S effects. He has given several talks about cre-
ative code, recently including Cascadia JS, the
Net art with Leap Motion (2014)
Northwest’s largest JavaScript conference. His
In a domed whispering gallery, even the quietest open source art projects include Solving Sol,
sounds are carried from one end of the room to which facilitates programmatically rendering Sol
another: communication across great distance. LeWitt’s wall drawings, and Facets.js, a genera-
Whispering Galleries delivers messages across tive polygonal library. Bouse designed and built
time—helping a voice lost to history reach a the family tree interface for Geni and the original
contemporary audience. Visitors to Whispering desktop app for Yammer. Currently, Brad runs
Galleries see their own image relected and dis- an interactive design consulting service advising
torted on a screen, and on its surface, a glowing early-stage web startups.
text appears to loat: an entry from an anonymous
1858 diary. The author worked with his hands in
many roles: as a woodworker making handles, a
dry goods clerk sweeping up and making trade,
and a violinist making music at home and church.
In daily entries, his week is measured by hand-
work. Visitors to Whispering Galleries use their
own hands to sweep the dust from his diary: ges-
turing over a Leap Motion controller, they scatter
pixels from the text, leaving behind a web of whis-
pers: erasure poems that tell a hidden narrative of
19th-century life, labor, and art.
Amaranth Borsuk’s most recent book is As
We Know, a collaboration with Andy Fitch. She is
the author of Handiwork (Slope, 2012), and, with
Brad Bouse, Between Page and Screen (Siglio,
2012), a book of augmented reality poems. The
two recently collaborated on Whispering Galleries,
an interactive erasure using LeapMotion. Abra, a
collaboration with Kate Durbin (forthcoming, 1913
Press), received an NEA-sponsored Expanded
Artists’ Books grant from the Center for Book and
Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago and will
be issued this year as an artist’s book with an iPad
app by Ian Hatcher.

NEW TEXT 157

 John Cayley makes language art using pro-
John Cayley and Daniel Howe grammable media. Recent work has explored

R E A D F O R U S ...
aestheticized vectors of reading and ‘writing to
be found’ within and against the services of Big
A N D S H OW U S Software. In future work he aims to write for a

THE PICTURES readership that is as much aural as visual. Cayley

is a professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.
Mixed media installation, custom software (2015) Daniel C. Howe is an artist, writer, and critical
technologist, whose work focuses on networked
Founded on its earlier installation, “Read For systems for text and sound, and on the social
Us”’ The Readers Project presents the work of and political implications of computational tech-
a software entity that generates digital video nologies. He resides in New York and Hong Kong,
montage, with visual content sourced through where he teaches at the School of Creative Media.
live image search. The Montage Reader – devel-
oped initially for English – analyses its text and
irst establishes a overall visual grammar based
on closed-class words that underlie linguistic
structure. The reader then searches for images
corresponding to phrases – ‘longest common
phrases’ whenever possible – inally composing
a sequence of images that corresponds with the
written language of the text both structurally and
also semantically – at least in so far as contem-
porary image search proposes a correspondence
that is meaningful for the human user-readers of
network services and their aggregation of crowd-
sourced indexing. Texts read by the Montage
Reader may include parts of Adam Smith’s An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations (1776), and Some Thing We Are, a short
story by Daniel C. Howe.

158 I S E A 2015
 Simon Groth is the director of if:book
Simon Groth Australia, an organisation dedicated to exploring

W I L L OW PAT T E R N S :
the changing nature of the relationship between
writers and readers. In this role, he has created
T H E C O M P L E T E 24– interactive live writing experiences and designed

HOUR BOOK works that push technological boundaries while

acknowledging the rich history of books and lit-
Experimental book environment (2014) erature. Simon’s books include Concentrate and
Off the Record: 25 Years of Music Street Press. He
In 2012, if:book Australia created a project that has edited two essay collections, Hand Made High
took a book from concept to print within a single Tech and The N00bz, and his short iction has
twenty-four hour period. The book was written been published in Australia and the United States.
and edited using an online platform where every
edit made to the text was captured and stored
in a database. Willow Patterns documents the
complete output from that database: authors and
editors at work. In its online component, Willow
Patterns creates an API and searchable interface
to the data, making every version of every story
accessible and open to remix and response. Its
physical component is an export of the book’s
complete database published in a lavish 28-vol-
ume hardcover with a continuous spine design.
If the future of the book includes print as an aes-
thetic choice, then Willow Patterns highlights the
possibility of printed books designed for pur-
poses other than reading, borrowing from print’s
powerful symbolism without devaluing the col-
lected stories within.

NEW TEXT 159

 Håkan Jonson (b. 1978) is a Swedish artist,
Johannes Heldén programmer, and author. Works include elec-
and Hakon Jonson tronic art, painting, sound creation and hand-
crafted books. He is one half of Irrlicht, a publish-
ENCYCLOPEDIA ing house and record company primarily focused
Experimental book installation (2015) on the contemporary art scene and a recurring
contributor at conferences and seminars con-
Encyclopedia is an ecological installation featur- cerning software development, cognitive sci-
ing digital and sculptural content. The core of the ence, and electronic literature. In 2014 his work
work is a text generator that creates encyclopedic Evolution (in collaboration with Johannes Heldén)
entries for extinct ictive animal species. These was rewarded the N. Katherine Hayles Award for
unique entries are given away as printed index Criticism of Electronic Literature.
cards to visitors of the exhibition. The work aims to
put a gentle focus on the state of the planet, mean-
while exploring the possibilities of digital art. The
text presentations of each species shift between
matter-of-fact descriptions of habitat and feeding
habits and more poetic sentences of the charac-
teristics of the species and its surroundings.
Johannes Heldén is an author, visual art-
ist, musician. Born in 1978, he lives and works
in Stockholm, and is the author of 11 books, ive
digital interactive artworks, and three full-length
music albums. Previous solo exhibitions include
HUMlab/Umeå University, OEI Colour Project (w/
Håkan Jonson), Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm,
Kalmar Konstmuseum, Galleri Volt in Bergen,
Stene Projects in Stockholm, and the Gothenburg
Museum of Art amongst others. Group exhibi-
tions include Remediating the Social at Inspace,
Edinburgh, Against Time at Bonniers Konsthall,
In Search of the Unknown at NIMK Amsterdam,
and Chercher le texte at Centre Pompidou. Digital
works published in the ELMCIP anthology of
European Electronic Literature, Spring Gun Press,
Afsnit P and others.

160 I S E A 2015
 Sebastian Schmieg is a Berlin-based artist,
Silvio Lorusso teacher and programmer who works with found
and Sebastian Schmieg materials and custom software to create pieces
that examine the way contemporary technologies
N E T WO R K E D shape online and ofline realities. Previously his
O P T I M I Z AT I O N work has been exhibited at Bitforms Gallery, New
York, USA; Transmediale, Berlin, Germany; and
Crowd-sourced book installation (2013)
Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Networked Optimization is a series of three

crowd-sourced versions of popular self-help
books. Each book contains the full text, which
is however invisible because it is set in white on
a white background. The only text that remains
readable consists of the so-called “popular high-
lights” – the passages that were underlined by
many Kindle users – together with the amount of
highlighters. Each time a passage is underlined,
it is automatically stored in Amazon’s data cen-
ters. Among the books with the most popular
highlights, there is a striking number of self-help
books. This points to a multi-layered, algorithmic
optimization: from readers and authors to Amazon
itself. Harvesting its customers’ micro-labour, the
act of reading becomes a data-mining process.
The series consists of The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People, The 5 Love Languages of Love,
and How to Win Friends & Inluence People.
Silvio Lorusso is an Italian artist, designer,
and researcher. His ongoing PhD research in
Design Sciences at Iuav University of Venice is
focused on experimental publishing informed by
digital technology. He took part in exhibitions and
events, such as Transmediale (Berlin, Germany),
Impakt (Utrecht, Netherlands), Off the Press
(Rotterdam, Netherlands), and Fahrenheit39
(Ravenna, Italy). His writing has appeared in
Metropolis M, Progetto Graico, and Doppiozero.

NEW TEXT 161

Michael Mandiberg
PRINT WIKIPEDIA
Experimental book installation (2014)

Print Wikipedia is an artwork in which software

parses the entirety of the Wikipedia database and
programmatically lays out a full set of over nearly
7500 volumes and then uploads these volumes to
Lulu.com, a print-on-demand website. The instal-
lation displays a set of these printed volumes
against a print of a schematic rendering of one
bookshelf of volumes. This bookshelf will contain
150 volumes, or 2% of the whole set. The adhe-
sive print is mounted to the wall, and one shelf is
mounted on top of the print; this shelf holds the
set of books.
Michael Mandiberg’s work traces political
and symbolic power online, commenting on and
interceding in the real lows of information. He sold
all of his possessions on Shop Mandiberg, made
perfect copies of copies on AfterSherrieLevine.
com, and created browser plugins highlighting
the environmental costs of a global economy on
the TheRealCosts.com. A recipient of fellowships
and commissions from Eyebeam, Rhizome.org,
and Turbulence.org, his work has been exhib-
ited at the New Museum, Ars Electronica, ZKM,
and Transmediale. He directs the New York Arts
Practicum and is Associate Professor at the
College of Staten Island/CUNY.

162 I S E A 2015
 Jesper Juul is an Associate Professor the
Nick Montfort, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of
Design. He has been working with the develop-
Amaranth Borsuk, and Jesper Juul
ment of video game theory since the late 1990’s,
THE DELETIONIST at the IT University of Copenhagen, MIT, and the
Net poetry (2013) New York University Game Center. His publica-
tions include Half-Real on video game theory,
and A Casual Revolution on how puzzle games,
The Deletionist is a concise system for automati- music games, and the Nintendo Wii brought
cally producing an erasure poem from any Web video games to a new audience. He maintains
page. It systematically removes text, discovering the blog The Ludologist on “game research and
a network of poems called “the Worl” within the other important things.” His latest book, The Art
World Wide Web. The Deletionist, based on the of Failure, was published by MIT Press in 2013.
work of book artists and erasure poets, takes the Nick Montfort develops computational art
form of a JavaScript bookmarklet. It can auto- and poetry, often collaboratively. He is on the
matically create erasures from any Web pages the faculty at MIT and is the principal of the nam-
reader visits. Similar methods have been used to ing irm, Nomnym. Montfort wrote the books of
erase all text and to turn webpages into Katamari poems #! and Riddle & Bind, co-wrote 2002: A
Damacy environments or Space Invaders lev- Palindrome Story, and developed more than 40
els, to make a game of destroying language. digital projects including the collaborations,The
Between such extremes and the everyday Web, Deletionist and Sea and Spar Between. The MIT
The Deletionist inds a space of texts that amplify, Press has published four of his collaborative
subvert, and uncover new sounds and meanings and individual books: The New Media Reader,
in their sources. Neither an artiicial intelligence Twisty Little Passages, Racing the Beam, and
nor a poetry generating system in any standard 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10,
sense, The Deletionist has a repertoire for uncov- with Exploratory Programming for the Arts and
ering patterns and revealing poetics at play within Humanities coming soon.
our most extensive textual network.
Amaranth Borsuk’s most recent book is As
We Know, a collaboration with Andy Fitch. She is
the author of Handiwork (Slope, 2012), and, with
Brad Bouse, Between Page and Screen (Siglio,
2012), a book of augmented reality poems. The
two recently collaborated on Whispering Galleries,
an interactive erasure using LeapMotion. Abra, a
collaboration with Kate Durbin (forthcoming, 1913
Press), received an NEA-sponsored Expanded
Artists’ Books grant from the Center for Book
and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago and
will be issued this year as an artist’s book with an
iPad app by Ian Hatcher.

NEW TEXT 163

 Alinta Krauth is a multidisciplinary artist who
Jason Nelson and Alinta Krauth focuses on projection art, interactive art, sound

E N T RO P I C T E X T S art, art games, and generative art, and is inter-

ested in experimenting with links between these
Experimental digital poetry (2015) ields. She is also interested in ways to tie educa-
tion and social relevance into interactive pieces
Entropic Texts is an experimental digital poem – particularly with regards to sustainability, ecol-
using text, image, and an interactive interface to ogy, and physics. Her recently exhibited works
explore the notion of entropy. Entropy is nature’s explore poetry games, interactive sound art,
tendency towards decay. Thus, it is entropy that interactive net art/literature, and interactive pro-
predicts the arrow of time and the length of the jection mapping onto sculpture. Her works have
life of all things – living and material. As you scroll been exhibited in Brisbane, New York, Virginia,
through this artwork, you are led into a world Vienna, Paris, and Melbourne.
where the “force” of decay gets slowly stronger, to
the point where text, images, and moving image,
become glitched and decayed beyond recogni-
tion. This imaginary world of quickening decay is
represented by the junkyard. What we often call
junkyards are spaces that were once collections
of adored or useful items that have succumbed
to entropy; thus, they are both clear metaphori-
cal and physical spaces of decay. Using a com-
bination of the artists’ own poetry written while
visiting junkyards and generated text, we seek to
experiment with the life and decay of digital data.
This work is intended to be read both ways. Once
the end is reached – 99% decay force, the piece
can then be scrolled back through, reversing the
arrow of time, and thus reversing entropy. The
act of creating a digital interactive poem feels a
lot like ighting with the forces of entropy – as an
artist you are creating a work that is constantly
attempting to break itself. Sometimes a large por-
tion of the artist’s role is to resurrect broken data.
This process of creation and destruction of data,
while central to our theme, was also self evident in
the creation of the work itself.
Jason Nelson creates digital poems and
net artworks. He teaches Net Art and Electronic
Literature at Australia’s Grifith University College
of Art. His work has been featured at FILE, ACM,
LEA, ISEA, SIGGRAPH, ELO and others. He was
awarded the Paris Biennale Media Poetry Prize
and is on the board of the Electronic Literature
Organization.

164 I S E A 2015
 Chris Rodley is a writer for new media whose
Chris Rodley and Andrew Buttrell work is exploring emerging frontiers for the liter-

D E AT H O F A N ary in networked environments. Most recently, his

focus has been on telling stories with data in a
ALCHEMIST series of collaborations with hybrid media artist
Database novel (2015) Andrew Burrell. They include the public artwork
Enquire Within Upon Everybody, which appeared
Death of an Alchemist is a novel written with data: at The Portals exhibition in Sydney and Darwin as
a literary narrative generated in real time from part of ISEA2013, and Everything is Going To Be
online information. In the story, a present-day OK :), which appeared at Underbelly Arts Festival
narrator logs onto the Internet to investigate the and the Electronic Literature Organization Media
death of Johannes Trithemius, a German abbot Arts Show in Milwaukee. Chris is a PhD candidate
and alchemist who died in 1516. He left behind at the University of Sydney as well as a contribu-
a mysterious book, the Steganographia, which tor at BuzzFeed.com.
is to contain the hidden secrets of the universe
disguised in code. The work consists of a wall of
projected text and symbols that is generated by
scraping a range of online data sources for news
headlines, social media posts, gifs, memes and
more. As the text lickers and updates with each
new piece of data that is received, readers are
invited to follow the clues to unravel the mystery
of the Steganographia and discover who killed
Trithemius and why.
Andrew Burrell is a contemporary arts practi-
tioner with a long history in real-time 3D and inter-
active audio installation. He is exploring notions
of self and narrative and the implications of virtual
worlds, networked environments and artiicial life
systems upon identity. His networked projects in
virtual environments include mellifera (with Trish
Adams), Virtual Macbeth (with Kereen Ely-Harper),
Augmentiforms (in collaboration with Warren
Armstrong and presented at ISEA 2011), and
IUXTA (ISEA 2013). Andrew holds a PhD from the
University of Sydney, his research having focused
on philosophical and poetic connections between
memory, the collected object and narrative.

NEW TEXT 165

 Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo is an interactive art-
Tiffany Sanchez and Jinsil ist/researcher focusing on aesthetics of interac-
Hwaryoung Seo tive experience. She is an assistant professor in
the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M
PREY University. With interactive art practice, Seo inves-
Experimental hybrid book (2015) tigates the intersection between body, nature and
technology. Her current research concentrates on
Prey is an exploration in digital storytelling through designing for tangible and kinetic aesthetics in the
the infusion of the old with the new, a hybrid graft- contexts of art, education, and health.
ing of the organic with the inorganic to create an
entirely new form of codex. While the design is
driven by an earthy handcrafted aesthetic, each
novel hosts a unique system of interactive tech-
nologies. Upon irst glance, they appear as a tril-
ogy of standard vintage volumes. Once opened,
readers will ind their characters carefully embod-
ied and thoroughly embedded within their pages.
Tiffany Sanchez is an emerging Texas artist
who believes old, broken, dead, or warped things
can be very beautiful. Her compositions are largely
comprised of organic, raw, and repurposed mate-
rials often left to decay. They vary from life-size
installations to miniatures that can easily be held
in one hand. Tiffany is currently pursuing an MFA
in Visualization at Texas A&M University.

166 I S E A 2015
 Christopher Vandegrift is a Philadelphia-
Chris Vandegrift based writer and new media artist whose practice
spans ilm, experimental music, and poetics. His
R E C U R S I V E D I C TAT I O N work has been presented at conferences across
Experimental text and speech, with SIRI and the U.S. and exhibited internationally. His debut
Dictation for iPhone (2013 - 2014) book, Policy Pete’s Dream Book, is forthcoming
from Make Now Press.
As of version 10.8 (July 2012), Apple Inc.’s Mac
OS X desktop operating system has included
Dictation, a feature modeled on Siri, the iPhone
voice-recognition interface. When activated, this
feature cross-references spoken audio input
against an online database of speech data and,
using this data, transcribes the audio into text.
The accuracy of this transcription is variable.
Mac OS X also features a speech synthesis util-
ity capable of “reading” text selections aloud in a
variety of differently accented computer voices.
The verisimilitude of these various voices is, like-
wise, variable. In Recursive Dictation, Mac OS X
text-to-speech output is recursively routed to the
Dictation feature and vice versa. The result is an
iterative stream of text and synthesized speech
that, due to the limitations of the speech synthe-
sis and speech recognition software, is both ever
mutating and never ending.

NEW TEXT 167

Andy Weir
S AT U R AT E D
H I G H WAY F O R E S T
D E AT H P S Y C H S Y N T H
PA N I C
Sound installation (2014)

Saturated Highway Forest Death Psych Synth

Panic (2015) is a three second pulse of collective
musical intelligence composed by metadata. It
proposes itself as a new genre, approaching -
but never touching - a collective generic distilla-
tion of TOTAL DARKNESS. The ongoing com-
position is tagged as Saturated Highway Forest
Death Psych Synth Panic and plugged back into
the generic metadata system so that the lashed
image becomes a label for the new genre. For
ISEA2015 the work is presented as a loop that
infects the space: three seconds of sound/image,
then three minutes of silence. Each day the ile
will be updated so that it grows and develops over
the event.
Andy Weir is an artist from London, UK.
His work, on extended and accelerated tem-
poralities, proposes strategies for collec-
tive knowledge in a context of ungrounding
panic. He is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Arts
University Bournemouth, UK, and PhD student
at Goldsmiths, University of London, researching
concepts, affects and politics of the deep time of
nuclear storage.

168 I S E A 2015
Jody Zellen
SPINE SONNET
Net art for mobile and desktop environments
(2011)

Spine Sonnet is an automatic poem generator in

the tradition of found poetry that randomly com-
poses 14 line sonnets derived from an archive of
over 2500 art and architectural theory and criti-
cism book titles. Each tap of the screen reveals
a new poem.
Jody Zellen is a Los Angeles based artist
who works in many media simultaneously mak-
ing interactive installations, mobile apps, net art,
animations, drawings, paintings, photographs,
public art, and artists’ books. She employs
media-generated representations as raw mate-
rial for aesthetic and social investigations. Her
interactive installations include “Time Jitters” a
commission for the Halsey Institute at the College
of Charleston, SC, 2014, “The Unemployed” at
Disseny Hub Museum in Barcelona in 2011 and
“The Blackest Spot” at Fringe Exhibitions in Los
Angeles in 2008. Most recently she has been
making mobile apps. “Urban Rhythms,” “Spine
Sonnet,” “Art Swipe,” “4 Square,” “Episodic,” and
“Time Jitters” are her six apps. They are available
in the iTunes Store.

NEW TEXT 169

SPOTTED
SENTIENTS:
DISPATCHES
FROM AN
UNEVEN
FRONTIER Programmed by: Elisa Ferrari and Alex Muir
Installation: Elisa Ferrari, Nikolai Gauer, Alex Muir
We acknowledge the support of the Canada
Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153
million to bring the arts to Canadians through-
out the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des
arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le
Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour
mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des
VIVO Media Arts Centre Canadiens de tout le pays.
Elisa Ferrari

VIVO Media Arts is pleased to host an evening her 3D volumetric display as a means for artists to
of screenings, performance and installation in explore the nascent gestures and vocabulary of
connection with ISEA2015. The event thematic of a new medium before the contours of its use are
Disruption provokes us to consider our own his- inluenced - as they invariably will be -by its cor-
torical situation within crisis and lux. In a period porate capture and release. Elsewhere the wispy
of social, political, industrial and environmental swivel of Jeremy Keenan’s “animated feedback
turmoil, broad and diverse groups of people have object” evokes the tentative scale and affect of
been formally committed to a haphazard explora- fable or parable.
tion of un/de-regulated interstices of the physical These hybrid forms suggest different regimes
and the virtual in hopes of inding workarounds, of synaesthesia, suturing sensations together at
new grades of paydirt, and perhaps even the odd different angles of incidence. Tom Slater’s Hybrid
revolutionary silver bullet. Spaces presents a contemporary contribution to
In over 40 years of existence, VIVO has the trompe l’oeil arms race, perhaps even aspiring
aspired to foster, whenever possible, the space of to render the concept moot in our felt experience
tenuous creative exploration that is traced out by of his protean transmediated beams. Ed Osborn’s
the thematics of ISEA. Often, such space issues Gain Stage plays with sensory resolution in an
prototypes with spiky cyberpunk physicality - elliptical fashion as the relationship between his
clunky, not yet streamlined, grotesque, speckled tableaus and their emanations is subject to an
with the historically residual. Several of the works impressionistic drift. The improvisational duo
featured at VIVO are deliberately rudimentary— good cop/naughty cop concretizes a relationship
playful but also underdetermined in order to make between source or energy and output—exploring
space for their interlocutors. Both work and plat- a highly topical sense of constraint as a potential
form, they are typically simple and crude meta- source of new expression.
phors and metonyms that nonetheless touch on Occupations with time and timing are evi-
profound questions of subjecthood and collectiv- dent in both Emmanuel Madan’s Addendum to
ity, and point at the unfurling dimensions of cog- Coincidence Engines and Angela Ferraiolo’s
nition. In an interview, Brady Marks characterizes Three Hollywood Grammars.

171
Emmanuel Madan
ADDENDUM TO
COINCIDENCE ENGINES
Performance for 50 Ikea clocks, metal surfaces,
contact microphones and amplification (2013)

The performance is part of Madan’s ongoing

engagement as part of the Montréal-based col-
lective [The User] with the ideas of György Ligeti
surrounding determinacy and indeterminacy in
complex mechanical systems. The performer
selects from a large pool of ostensibly identical
clocks, placing these on one of several metal sur-
faces to which contact microphones are afixed.
The performance relies on the subtle differences Frederico Pimpão & ERROR-43
between each of the clocks, their rhythmic and
timbral distinctions highlighted by the resonating F U T U R E I N P RO G R E S S
characteristics of the metal sheets. Light, Audio, Paper, Drawing (2014)
The Coincidence Engines series was begun
by [The User] in 2008. Earlier works in the series Future in Progress is a performance that emerges
include Coincidence Engine One: Universal from a new spatial perspective in which the artists
Peopleʼs Republic Time and Coincidence Engine seek to transport audiences into a real time imagi-
Two: Approximate Demarcator of Constellations narium. This imaginarium operates on inputs from
in Other Cosmos. the physical world and aims to explore the relation
Emmanuel Madan is a musician, composer between the real world and the imaginative realm.
and sound artist. After studies in electroacous- ERROR-43 are architecture students whose
tic composition and work as radio broadcaster, works explore the digital environment as an inte-
he co-founded [The User] with architect Thomas gral element in the built environment. Working
McIntosh in 1997. He also maintains a solo sound in Portugal, they have created and exhibited
art practice with works such as H, a constella- work for NewSpace (Setubal), ArchOpeningYear
tion of installations and performances exploring (Lisbon) and international works such as
the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, ArtVisionContest (Moscow), and La moisture de
Zwischenlaute, a series of works inspired by Arte Visive (Venice), and have been pre-selected
accidental speech, and a number of sound art to BankSpace in London.
works conceived for radio. Madan is the national
director of the Independent Media Arts Alliance
(Canada). He lives and works in Montréal.

172 I S E A 2015
Tom Slater Jeremy Keenan

H Y B R I D S PAC E S E A R T O M O U T H II
Kinetic, generative sound installation (2015)
Audiovisual 3D soundsculpture (2014)

Hybrid Spaces interrogates whether or not three Ear to Mouth II is a kinetic, generative sound
dimensional audiovisual imaging technologies installation using a moving speaker, four modiied
can act as a clear cut barrier separating digital microphones, and processed speaker feedback.
space and physical space and raises the ques- The amplitude of feedback inluences the subse-
tion: Are virtual objects now capable of generating quent movement of the speaker, which creates
the same perceptual effects as real objects? By further changes in the patterns of feedback. The
converging laser beam projections with OpenGL piece is part of a series initiated with an interest
graphics and sound source panning, the installa- in remote signals, such as mobile networks, and
tion induces an ambiguity of multi-stable, digital/ how they affect the movement of human bodies in
physical space. physical space. The pervasive multitude of distant
Tom Slater is an artist and researcher who signals appears to be an invisible process, but has
works with digital media and physical comput- a tangible inluence on the domain of the lesh.
ing to build immersive audiovisual environments. Jeremy Keenan’s practice has manifested as
Currently a director of Call & Response and PhD sonic art, music, multichannel sound, and immer-
researcher at University College Falmouth, Tom’s sive performance. His current line of practice
creative practice revolves around how sound and surrounds ideas of feedback, the reconiguration
image producing technologies affect our under- of familiar audio tools like speakers and micro-
standing of spatial dis/embodiment. phones, and the communicative possibilities
inherent in sound. Jeremy builds sonic artworks
using motion, feedback, and light. Jeremy has
a PhD in Studio Composition from Goldsmiths
College. He is a director of the London based
sonic arts collective Call & Response. Jeremy
Keenan is of no known relation to the anthropolo-
gist of the same name.

SPOTTED SENTIENTS 173

Brady Marks
WE ARE WITH
Y O U : M I R RO R
2500 diffuse while LEDs, Peggy 2 Light Emitting
Pegboard, 3 Phase Motor, HAL Effects Sensor,
Beagle Bone White Linux Computer, Plexiglass,
Metal Work (Rob Symers), Custom Software (C/
Processing), iMac (2012-2015)

Techinically, We Are With You: Mirror, is a 9 Cubic

Foot, True 3D Volumetric Display based on persis-
tence of vision, or briely the Hologram from Star
Wars. Originating from the artist run centres and
DIY communities in Vancouver, it is a bold shot
across the bow of “3D” TV. Conceived by media
artist Brady Marks, this 3D Display prototype was
built at VIVO Media Arts Centre, shown at Maker
Faire Vancouver (2014) and Science World (2015).
It is both an artwork and meta work, or Platform for
3D Kinetic Experimentation, continuing the tradi-
tion of putting new and emerging technology in the
hands of artists to explore the medium’s scope.
Brady Ciel Marks is an artist working in
sound, light and interactive sculpture. She works
with technology and against technological think-
ing. Her work is often collaborative, bringing
generative and interactive perspectives to the
conversation. Her solo projects question impend-
ing cultural forces such as surveillance, remedia-
tion and technological determinism. She holds
a M.Sc. in Interactive Arts from Simon Fraser
University (SFU), hosts a monthly sound art radio
show, plays music in a the Vancouver Electronic
Ensemble, and DJs regularly.

174 I S E A 2015
 Experimental Film Festival (Melbourne), as well
Angela Ferraiolo as the International Conference of Generative
Art (Rome), and the International Conference of
T H R E E H O L L Y WO O D
GRAMMARS:
Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization
(Taiwan). New projects include further noise

C O N V E R S AT I O N , experiments, immersive video, and interactive

CHASE, SHOOTOUT
video for mobile devices. She teaches Playable
Media at Sarah Lawrence College.
Video (2015)

Three Hollywood Grammars is a computational

video made by deconstructing three classic
scenes from Hollywood cinema: the A/B walk-
and-talk conversation essential to police proce-
durals, the “mano à mano” shootout of neo-noir
thrillers, and the gritty urban chase scene of 70s
Hollywood realism. Each of these iconic cine-
matic patterns was deconstructed, edited, color
graded, and exported as single frames. For exhi-
bition, these frames are then reconigured through
the use of sequencing grammars and computer
algorithms to generate a disrupted video montage
that emphasizes pattern over story. Sound is dis-
torted through the use of granular synthesis. The
result is a portrait of the structures and routines
that form the basis of American movie montage.
Viewers engage the deep structure of Hollywood
cinema rather than any forward progression of
story. The results feel both familiar and startling,
informative of the visual patterns residing as
archetypes in popular cinema. Beyond this, the
repetitions and pattern making revealed by algo-
rithmic recombination make these experiments
arresting visual statements in their own right.
Angela Ferraiolo is an experimental vid-
eomaker working with noise, randomness,
and generative processes. Her work has been
screened at galleries and festivals nation-
ally and internationally, including Microscope
Gallery (Bushwick), New York Film Festival (New
York), Courtisane (Ghent), AWXFF (New York),
Collectìf Jeune Cinema (Paris), and the Australian

SPOTTED SENTIENTS 175

Ed Osborn
GA I N S TAG E
Sound installation (2015)

Gain Stage is a kinetic sound installation that

sounds out and shapes acoustic space in relation
to a series of physical and mechanical tableaus.
Each tableau focuses on a single device or object
that involves a process of mechanical ampliica-
tion or motion. The movements in each tableau are
ampliied so that their sounds are heard in vary-
ing combinations from speakers that are spread
throughout the space. The sounds are processed
to produce an elliptical relationship between the
tableau and the sound of the movements it shows:
they are iltered or delayed, and often heard at a
distance. This processing changes over time, so
that as each tableau unfolds, the sounds asso-
ciated with it move in and out of acoustic focus.
The title comes from the technical term for elec-
tronic signal ampliication. Here it refers both to
the forms of mechanical ampliication on display
and describes the situation of the piece itself as a
platform for multiple experiences of gain staging.
Ed Osborn works with many forms of elec-
tronic media including installation, video, sound,
and performance. He has received grants from
the Guggenheim Foundation, the Creative Work
Fund, and Arts International and been awarded
residencies from the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin
Program, the Banff Centre, STEIM (Amsterdam),
and EMPAC (Troy, NY). He has presented his work
at SFMOMA (San Francisco, CA), the singuhr-
hörgalerie (Berlin, Germany), Artspace (Sydney,
Australia), ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany), Kiasma
(Helsinki, Finland), and MassMOCA (North
Adams, MA), He is on the faculty of the Visual Arts
Department at Brown University (Providence, RI).

176 I S E A 2015
177
THE
MUTEK
CABARET

MUTEK Team: Alain Mongeau, General and

Artistic Director Audrey Powell, Executive Director
Patti Schmidt, Programmer and Editor Bérénice
Sensey, Administrative Coordinator Chloé
Douris, Communications Coordinator Katharina
Meissner, Strategic Development
We acknowledge the support of the Canada
Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153
million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout
the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du
Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a
investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art
dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de
tout le pays.

Wong Theatre
Alain Mongeau

In the context of ISEA’s 21st edition in Vancouver, resenting three generations of Québec artists
MUTEK is proud to present a series of audiovisual active in the 20 years since the original Cabaret.
performances from some of Québec’s most inter- Herman Kolgen’s always visionary conceptual
nationally renowned and emerging artists working and technical intersections between sound and
in this ield. With The MUTEK Cabaret, MUTEK image and artiiciel’s long running fascinations
deliberately recalls and echoes The Electronic with illumination, power currents and the inven-
Cabaret, a program presented during the last tion of new digital instruments, epitomize an
ISEA symposium in Canada, which took place original vanguard; Bernier and Messier (together
in Montréal in 1995. In many respects, the event and singularly) are a second wave of artists who
of 1995 marked the beginning of a process that have furthered audiovisual digital practices that
led to Montréal’s emergence as a digital arts hub, play between the immaterial and material, adding
creating a lasting impression and inspiring the elements of performer intervention and theatrical
realization of institutions such as the SAT (Société choreography to the oeuvre, while Myriam Bleau,
des Arts Technologiques) and the MUTEK and Maotik & Metametric, Woulg and BetaFeed typ-
Elektra festivals. Presented at the now defunct ify a new generation of practitioners building on
Spectrum, the original Electronic Cabaret offered the fertile and established terrain that has come
irst glimpses in North America of avant garde dig- before them, always advancing the theoretical,
ital work such as Modell 5 by Granular Synthesis, conceptual, affective and technical elements that
a revelatory presentation that seeded many deine this most contemporary of forms. The full
of the experimental digital practices that have circle of creativity exempliied by The MUTEK
since matured in Québec and taken on their own Cabaret also offers a promise for what could hap-
distinct qualities and expressions. Curated by pen in the Vancouver scene, as ISEA provides an
Artistic Director Alain Mongeau in both instances, opportunity to jump-start a new cycle of inspira-
this new program features eight startling and tion and stimulate ever more daring relationships
mesmerizing live audiovisual performances rep- between art and technology here.

179
Maotik & Metametric
OMNIS
Audiovisual performance (2014)

After performing their irst work together, the micro-

rhythmic, minimalist A/V experiment Durations at
MUTEK in 2014, Maotik & Metametric continue
their creative association with Omnis. The duo’s
latest immersive and multi-sensorial performance
is inspired by the concept and technological real-
ity of ubiquity. The ability to transfer information
instantaneously all over the world dramatically
alters the human perception of space, time and
relationships, reducing experience to a “here and
now” unit of being. Omnis explores the conditions
of this contemporary temporality using a live gen-
erative audiovisual system, multiple degrees of
optical illusion and distortion of the performance
space to destabilize the environment and explode
the idea of being everywhere (and nowhere) at the
same time. Following impressive recent displays
at Barcelona’s Mira, London’s BFI Digital Québec, Photo 1 credit: Caroline Hayeur
Lima’s Visiones, MUTEK Mexico and several Photo 2 credit: Matthew Cheetham

other festivals around the world, Omnis made its

Canadian premiere at MUTEK 2015.
Montréal-based Maotik & Metametric
combine the forces of digital artist Mathieu Le
Sourd (Maotik) and musician and producer Jean-
François Pedneault (Metametric). Pedneault lends
his background as a percussionist for orchestras
and chamber music ensembles, as a composer for
theatre, dance and ilm (with over 50 soundtracks
to his credit), and as a solo electroacoustic musi-
cian to their collaboration. Mathieu Le Sourd is a
master of generative visuals for interactive instal-
lations and multimedia performances. He designs
his own audiovisual tools to create real-time
immersive experiences such as DROMOS, pre-
sented in dome environments around the world.
He holds a Master in Digital Arts from the IUA
Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

180 I S E A 2015
 A composer, digital artist and performer
Myriam Bleau based in Montréal, Myriam Bleau explores the
limits between musical performance and digital
S O F T R E VO L V E R S arts, creating audiovisual systems such as sound
Music performance (2014) installations and performance speciic musical
interfaces. A multi-instrumentalist from child-
Soft Revolvers extends Myriam Bleau’s practice hood, Bleau plays cello, guitar, and piano. Her
of exploring the sonic potential of everyday or hybrid electronic practice integrates hip hop,
familiar objects that engage audiences by trig- techno, experimental and pop elements with a
gering subconscious physical memories of their focus on generating a physical response through
lived experience with those objects, including the pure tones and perceptual effects. She has pre-
ways in which they inform behavioural expecta- sented across Canada, in the US and in Europe.
tions, function and symbolic connotations. A Her recent work Soft Revolvers, received an hon-
music performance for four self-built spinning orary mention for the Prix Ars Electronica 2015.
tops composed of clear acrylic, each top is asso- She is currently working on a master’s degree in
ciated with an “instrument” or element in an elec- composition at the Université de Montréal.
tronic music composition. The tops are equipped
with gyroscopes and accelerometers that com-
municate wirelessly with a computer where the
motion data collected (speed, unsteadiness at the
end of a spin, acceleration spikes in case of col-
lisions) informs musical algorithms. LEDs placed
inside the tops illuminate the body of the objects
in a precise counterpoint to the music, while the
positioning of the lights creates visually stunning
halos around the tops, enhanced by persistence
of vision effects and projections. With their large
circular spinning bodies and their role as music
playing devices, the spinning top interfaces and
some of the mappings between gestures and
sound, have been borrowed directly from the
bimodal action of turntables and the sampling
culture of hip hop.

Photo credits: Matthew Cheetham

MUTEK 181
Nicolas Bernier
FREQUENCIES
(SYNTHETIC
VA R I AT I O N S )
Sound and light performance (2013)

Presented as a world premiere at MUTEK 2013,

frequencies (synthetic variations) is the second
instalment in Nicolas Bernier’s avant garde audio-
visual series, in which he tampers with sound
waves and light bursts in real-time – like a sculp-
tor would carve out a mold as he prepares to real-
ize his creation. Just as impressive as frequencies
(a) was at simultaneously rendering sound visible
and a stream of light audible, frequencies (syn-
thetic variations) inds the performer processing
sequences of light and purely synthetic sounds
with extreme precision – resulting in intermit-
tent light blasts within small acrylic structures.
Whether he’s hatching inventive sound installa-
tions, musique concrète or live video art, the mul- Photo 1 credit: Isabel Rancier
tidisciplinary Bernier is ever mindful of striking a Photo 2 credit: Isabelle Gardiner

delicate balance between intellect and sensuality,

materiality and ephemera, and between organic
sounds and digital processing.
Nicolas Bernier creates sound perfor-
mances, installations, musique concrète, live
electronics, post rock, noise improv, and video
art while also working in dance, theatre and
other interdisciplinary contexts. In 2013, he was
awarded the Golden Nica by Prix Ars Electronica.
He has performed at Sonar, MUTEK, DotMov
Festival and Transmediale, and his recorded
works have been published on labels like Crónica,
leerraum, Home Normal and LINE. He is a mem-
ber of Perte de signal, a media arts research
and development centre based in Montréal and
a long time collaborator with Martin Messier. He
holds a PhD in Sonic Arts from the University
of Huddersield (UK) and teaches in the Digital
Music program of the Université de Montréal.

182 I S E A 2015
 For more than 15 years, Montréal artists
Alexandre Burton Alexandre Burton and Julien Roy have been har-
& Julien Roy (artificiel.org) nessing electricity to make art that blends live

P OW E r performance and installation work, music and

image. Existing on the digital plane and in the
Audiovisual performance with Tesla coil (2009) wholly physical, they fashion new instruments
and contexts while constantly examining the pro-
Utilizing a bespoke Tesla coil, POWEr is a per- cesses underlying their multi-layered discipline
formance based on the sonics and striking and its effects. They have built a practice unique
imagery that offshoots from the machine’s high to their backgrounds – both come from the elec-
voltage emissions. Used as source materials, troacoustic music department at the Université
electrical ingredients are generated, captured, de Montréal. Roy has produced electronic music
transformed and diffused live on stage through in several guises, while Burton’s interest in sci-
digital processing and manipulation of sound and ence and technology has led him to invent unique
video. Building on a context that sets it halfway digital instruments which he also deploys in his
between a musical presentation and a media arts own projects.
installation, POWEr demarks the continuation of
artiiciel’s development. Having charted a singu-
lar path investigating composition and electrical
impulses with previous projects such as bulbes
(2003) and beyond6281 (2004), as well as culti-
vating a performative dimension with such later
works as cubing (2006) and artiiciel.process
(2008), POWEr takes its place among this oeuvre
by raising the stakes of spontaneity and working
with evermore complex musical structures and
visual dramaturgy. Originally commissioned by
MUTEK for its 10th edition, this project was made
possible by funding from the Media Arts section
of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil
des arts et Lettres du Québec and has continued
to tour the world since.

Photo 1 credit: Audrey Gaudrault

Photo 2 credit: Ed Jansen

MUTEK 183
Herman Kolgen
SEISMIK
Audiovisual performance (2014)

Seismik is a dazzling, tension charged perfor-

mance that taps into seismic waves, frictional
resistance and the Earth’s tremor related phe-
nomena in real time. True to Kolgen’s temporal/
spatial conceptual preoccupations and radio-
graphic approach, he again renders the invisible
visible: he has developed sophisticated software
that picks up on the Earth’s magnetic ields and
seismic activity from São Paolo to Kyoto, in turn
generating abstracted sound and dramatic visual
motifs. Exploring the ambiguity of realism in
post human landscapes, Kolgen creates three
dimensional simulations through the instability of
dynamical systems and converts them into large
scale cinematic visuals. A dramatic display of ter-
restrial activity, Seismik plays on notions of physi-
cal, cerebral and emotional tension, in this case
using vibrational data and vertical through-lines Photo credit: Caroline Hayeur
to explore seismic strains and fractures of vary-
ing intensities, planting the audience squarely on
terra (not so) irma.
Internationally renowned, multifaceted mul-
timedia artist, Herman Kolgen, has been model-
ing sumptuous ‘audiocinetic’ sculptures for over
twenty years. The Montréal-based sight and
sound virtuoso continually hatches new concep-
tual approaches to celebrate the powerful syn-
ergy (and intimacy) at the heart of his audiovisual
works. His installation and performance pieces
boast a hybrid technical language and a singular
and bold aesthetic, sitting at the juncture of many
artistic practices. From 1996 to 2008, Kolgen
dedicated the majority of his immersive practice
to the audiovisual Skoltz_Kolgen duo, performing
at prestigious international events such as Berlin’s
Transmediale, the Venice Biennale, Austria’s Ars
Electronica, and multiple appearances at MUTEK.

184 I S E A 2015
 Martin Messier’s work takes shape through
Martin Messier the relationship between sound and material; he
gives life to sound through various objects such
FIELD as alarm clocks, sewing machines, ilm projectors,
Sound and light performance (2015) pens and self conceived machines. He pushes the
everyday imaginary into new terrain, magnifying
Exploring the performative qualities of an electri- and reinventing their functions, lipping the cus-
cal ield while conjuring and animating it, Martin tomary hierarchy, making sound the driving force
Messier’s latest work lays bare invisible and of movements. Messier has presented his multi-
inaudible power lows through constant plug- disciplinary work at esteemed events around the
ging and replugging of cables set between a dip- world, often in collaboration with Nicolas Bernier.
tych of connection panels. This “ield” becomes In 2010, he founded 14 lieux, a company dedi-
an instrument and Messier’s body becomes a cated to sound work in the art scene. Holding a
conduit, a part of the ield, as he conducts the diploma in percussion, Martin Messier also has a
electric currents and composes them into sound bachelor’s degree in electroacoustic composition
and asymmetrical rhythm. Light and darkness from the Université de Montréal.
interplay as wires illuminate and projections of
Messier’s movements provide ghostly apparitions
of modulated magic. Created in collaboration with
Thomas Payette (Robert Lepage/Ex Machina) and
premiered at MUTEK 2015, Field produces mul-
tiple variations on sound, light and space as he
captures, manipulates and visualizes for the audi-
ence, a collage of electromagnetic ields. With the
help of a microphone that features electromag-
netic transducers, he harnesses residual electri-
cal signals that are imperceptible to the human
ear, and uses them as the driving soundtrack for
his choreography of interventions.

Photo credit: Martin Messier

MUTEK 185
 Montréal-based composer and new media
Woulg artist Greg Debicki produces emotive glitch music
by combining the dissonance of grunge with the
RING BUFFER rhythmic complexity of IDM and jazz. Woulg
Audiovisual performance (2014) releases his output on labels such as Outlier
Recordings and Enig’matik. An open source
Ring Buffer explores databending by modelling advocate, he writes generative music software
sound in three dimensions. Sounds are sculpted and designs interactive projections. Using a bun-
in 3D modelling software using procedural algo- dle of custom software and hacked hardware, he
rithms and then converted to sound using image experiments with subversive methods of sound
to audio mapping, which are then displayed design and visual rendition. He completed a BFA
using a spectrograph. By using gestural rhyth- from Alberta College of Art and Design and stud-
mic structures with a heavy emphasis on textures ied music composition at the Dartington College
and dynamics, the performance takes the audi- of Arts, UK.
ence through an imagined geography, exploring
multiple perspectives of alien shapes and sound-
scapes. By creating the sounds irst as visual
objects and then manipulating them as sounds in
order to display them as visuals again, the proj-
ect aims to bring the audience into the fabric of
the data, to explore it from an inside perspective.
Ring Buffer was presented as a world première at
MUTEK.ES in Barcelona in March 2015 and was
also featured at the Digital Québec showcase in
London the same month, as well as at MUTEK
2015 in Montréal.
Photo credit: Kamielle Dalati Vachon

186 I S E A 2015
 Based in Montréal, BetaFeed merges the
BetaFeed talents of Alexis Langevin-Tétrault, an electro-
acoustic and electronic music composer and
SYSTEM performer, and Lucas Paris, an audiovisual pro-
Audiovisual performance (2015) grammer and composer. Active in areas such as
sound design for theatre, video games and video
Inspired by new technologies and network theory, projects, Langevin-Tétrault has been recognized
System uses custom software and generative for his experimental sound work, having been
audiovisual synthesis, manipulated and con- awarded a prize in the Acousmatic category at the
trolled by gestural interaction and touch inter- VII International Competition of Electroacoustic
faces, to explore relationships between modern Composition 2014, Foundation Destellos. Lucas
society and individuals, communication strate- Paris develops his own custom digital tools seek-
gies, power and technological progress. The work ing to push the artistic limits of current technolo-
offers an allegory for a globalized and intercon- gies with the aim of reaching ever more complex
nected world in which individuals seek to make and spontaneous expressions between the visual
sense of their experience and attempt to retain and the musical. He has lent this approach to col-
some freedom of action. The performers assume laborations with Pierre Michaud, Jean Piché and
the role of this individual, interacting in real-time Herman Kolgen.
with audiovisual processes that affect the forma-
tion and behaviour of their output, while respond-
ing to the network of data and information gen-
erated by sound and image. The aim is to avoid
chaos or a totalitarian takeover by the system.
Projected onto a giant screen, System illustrates
the relexivity and tension at the core of a contem-
porary experience mediated by technology.

Photo credit: Lucas Paris

MUTEK 187
NEW
FORMS
FESTIVAL
Over the past 15 years the New Forms Festival
has been a mainstay of Vancouver’s media arts
community. Through the festival and other events
year-round, we are proud to have worked with the
collection of artists, collectives and institutions
that make up the diversity of Vancouver’s artist-
run culture. It is an honour to be a programming
partner with ISEA2015, and to be co-presenting
a number of works and performances during the
internationally recognized Symposium. ISEA2015
marks the start of a new era for New Forms, as we
move from a festival focus toward an organization
committed to year-round programming. By invit-
ing an international cohort of artists and practi-
tioners for the Symposium, while simultaneously
showcasing the rich ecology of local artists that
have put Vancouver on the international media
Vancouver arts map, we believe this partnership to be the

Art Gallery ideal launching off point for the next 15 years.
Anthony Shakir Attitudes in Error
FRICTIONAL/ AC T I N G P R E S S
PUZZLEBOX Vancouver, Canada - Live
Detroit, USA - DJ
Print off a copy of your work and mark speciic
Detroit producer Anthony “Shake” Shakir is one examples of where the two works are similar, par-
of the more underrecognized, underappreciated ticularly good evidence is if you can ind duplica-
names in American techno. A bedroom producer tion of unique aspects of your work, for example,
since 1981, Shake had an important role in help- if an error in your original has been duplicated in
ing shape the early Motor City sound associated the copy.
with artists such as Juan Atkins and Derrick May.
He worked with May and Carl Craig as a pro-
ducer, writer, or engineer on several early tracks
on Metroplex. His irst solo material appeared on
Virgin’s seminal Techno! The New Dance Sound of
Detroit compilation with “Sequence 10”. Known
as something of a techno purist, Shake has dis-
tanced himself from the European scene many of
his colleagues have turned to for support and his
music is stylistically closer to second wave artists
such as Mad Mike Banks and Claude Young –
hard, stripped-down tracks which owe equally to
techno, electro, hip-hop, and funk. Shake’s vis-
ibility and reputation have risen in more recent
years as a result of his Frictional and Puzzlebox
labels, the latter of which he formed in 1996 with
fellow Detroit electro / techno producer Keith
Tucker (formerly of Aux 88). Recent years have
seeing Shakir releasing music on labels such as
Wild Oats, Morphine Records and FIT. This will be
Anthony’s irst time appearing in Vancouver.

189
RAMZi Nicolas Sassoon

1080 P / T O TA L S TA S I S V I S UA L
Vancouver, Canada - Live AC C O M PA N I M E N T
Marseille, France / Vancouver, Canada.
RAMZi is the solo project of Phoebé Guillemot,
a Vancouver based (from Montreal) self-taught The work of Nicolas Sassoon makes use of vari-
composer. She began to explore Ableton Live ous computer-based processes to generate fan-
with the intuition that strangely electronic music tasized visions of architectures, landscapes and
would bring her closer to her ideal of organic and domestic environments. While most of his work is
spiritual music. What came out after many years published online as animated GIFs, Sassoon also
of exploration is this lysergic tropical musical materializes his web-based practice into sculp-
world integrating elements of Caribbean, Baleric, tures, prints, textiles, and site-speciic installa-
Fourth World, dub, jazz fusion, glitch and video tions, as well as collaborations with other artists,
game music. architects, music producers and fashion design-
ers. Sassoon’s work often explores the contem-
plative and projective dimensions of the digital,
as well as the manner in which virtual space can
(or cannot) be inscribed within the physical realm.
Nicolas Sassoon has shown in international ven-
ues and events such as the New Museum (US),
319 Scholes (US), Eyebeam (US), May Gallery &
Residency (US), Contemporary Art Gallery (CA),
Charles H.Scott Gallery (CA), Western Front (CA),
PRETEEN Gallery (MX), the Centre d’Art Bastille
(FR), Arti et Amicitiae (NL), MU Eindhoven (NL) ,
Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), Today Art Museum
(CN), the Berlin Fashion Week (DE)) and the New-
York Fashion Week (US). Nicolas is a member
of the online collective Computers Club and a
founder of the collective W-A-L-L-P-A-P-E-R-S.

190 I S E A 2015
191
PERFORMANCE
Adrien M / Claire B body by employing contemporary technologies

HAKENAï in the service of timeless poetry. The company is

based in Lyon, France, where it operates a studio
2013 of research and creation.

Hakanaï is an interactive solo choreographic per- Directors and Digital performance:

formance that unfolds through a series of images Adrien Mondot & Claire Bardainne
in motion in which a dancer gives life to a space Soundscape: Christophe Sartori, Loïs Drouglazet
somewhere between the borders of imagination Dancer: Akiko Kajihara
and reality. The interactive space is composed of
on-stage animations that move in physical pat-
terns according to the movement of the dancer
and the rhythm of the live sound. Hakanaï takes
the audience on an immersive experience explor-
ing the imaginary and the spatial, the liminal and
the ephemeral. Curated by Philippe Pasquier and
Sarah Fdili Alaoui.
Hakanaï is a Japanese word deining the
ephemeral and the fragile. It is the union of two
characters, one meaning “man” and the other
“dream”. Starting from these premises, the French
company AM/CB created a unique interactive
choreographic solo performance that offers a
dreamlike environment where a single dancer
moves within a cube, interacting with the images
projected on its walls, tracing arcing parabo-
las and sine waves with hands, arms, and feet.
Among the artistic and technological stakes, the
attention is focused on the human being and their
body through the use of interactive technology.
Hakanaï is a 45-minute interactive solo that
becomes an installation and allows the audience
to experience the interactive visuals for 80 min-
utes. Hakanaï has been performed all around
the world and has gained worldwide recognition
since its debut in 2013.
The company Adrien M / Claire B has been
working in the ield of digital arts since 2004.
The company makes performances and exhibi-
tions that use custom-made computing tools to
explore the association between reality and vir-
tuality. These works, led by Adrien Mondot and
Claire Bardainne, focus attention on the human

194 ISEA 2015

Michael Denton
and Anna McCrickard
DEEPENING SCENERY
Audiovisual Performance (2014)

Deepening Scenery is a 30-minute audiovisual

performance using “component” music and
imagery designed to be mixed live, and incorpo-
rating a balance between the pre-designed and
the accidental. Overlap utilize systematic obscu-
ration, sound/ image disparity, and representa-
tions of landscape juxtaposed with a stream of
manmade objects (components from everyday
items), which moves from lowing abstraction to
split second interventions. An endless conveyer
of the beautiful yet unknown, accompanied by
a melodic minimalist soundtrack. In a world of
ubiquitous, immediately interpretable imagery
and information, perhaps a crucial purpose for
abstraction is a kind of universal yet personal
sensory mapping. Curated by Philippe Pasquier
and Vicki Moulder.
Michael Denton and Anna McCrickard
formed Overlap in 1999 as a platform for music,
electronic art and music industry, festival and
gallery activities including single screen pieces,
VJing, audiovisual performances and installa-
tions. Overlap’s music is created alongside their
imagery. Current work explores the relationship
between still and moving imagery through systems
of implied motion within transitions, use of discrete
picture planes and obscuration techniques.

PERFORMANCE 195
John McCormick
and Steph Hutchison
E M E RG E N C E

Emergence by John McCormick, Steph Hutchison

and an emerging performing agent, is a dance
duet performed between a human dancer and
an artiicially intelligent performing agent. The
agent has learnt to dance through a rehearsal
process with the dancer, sharing the dancer’s
movement and style. Emergence sees the dancer
and agent co-creating an interactive semi-impro-
vised dance performance. The neural network
based agent uses a motion capture system as
its sensory input for understanding the dancer’s
movement. Emergence investigates the nature of
embodiment, cognition and perception for a digi-
tal entity, and the relationships formed through
the co-creative process of performance genera-
tion between the agent and dancer. Curated by
Philippe Pasquier
John McCormick and Steph Hutchison inves-
tigate the use of machine learning for the devel-
opment of intelligent performing partners and
environments. Their practice has centred on the
application of learning techniques to performing
software agents and humanoid robots to explore
the potential for them to become more a part of
the collaborative performance-making process.
Steph and John are artist researchers at Motion.
Lab Deakin University, Melbourne Australia.

196 I S E A 2015
Barry Truax,
Ben Wilson,
Maureen Liang,
Hildegard Westerkamp,
and Yves Candau
OCTOPHONIC
SOUNDSCAPE
C O M P O S I T I O N S F RO M
VA N C O UV E R

This is an octophonic concert of soundscape

compositions by Vancouver composers, pre-
sented in an 8-channel surround-sound format.
SFU is the home the World Soundscape Project,
founded in the early 1970s by R. Murray Schafer,
and its audio documentation practices have cre-
ated some of the materials heard in these works.
For instance, Barry Truax’s Paciic Fanfare
includes several Vancouver soundmarks from the
1970s and recently, heard both in their original
state, and digitally resonated and time-stretched
so they can “resonate” in our own memories. In
Ben Wilson’s Sediment, layering plays a key role
as it does within sedimentary formations, heard
as descending (or ascending) through a rock
formation, passing through each level of strata.
Maureen Liang’s No Destination is about a melan-
choly individual openly sharing her emotions with
Siri — the virtual assistant on her mobile device.
Hildegaard Westerkamp’s Into the Labyrinth is
a sonic journey into India’s culture on the edge
between dream and reality, similar to how many
visitors experience this country. Yves Candau
constructs a magical and delicate soundscape
within an imaginary forest, and Truax’s Earth and
Steel takes the listener back to a time when large
steel ships were built in enclosed slips, and rich
metallic resonances rang out.

PERFORMANCE 197
MUSEBOT Led by Jean Routhier
Generative music software installation (2015) S O U N DWA L K S
Musebots are pieces of software that autono- Sonic walking experiences (2015)
mously create music, collaboratively with other
musebots. The goal of this project is to establish Soundwalks are approximately 60 to 90 minutes
a creative platform for experimenting with musi- in length. This exploration weaves through diverse
cal autonomy, open to people developing cutting- soundscapes, both man-made and natural, invit-
edge music AI, or simply exploring the creative ing the listener to become immersed in the total-
potential of generative processes in music. Not ity of the sonic environment, and to sensually
simply a robot jam, but individual virtual instru- imagine, respond to, and hear often overlooked
mentalists coming together, like a band, to social environments, communities and other
autonomously create (in this case) downtempo urban places. The soundwalks take place rain
EDM. For this Canadian premiere of the MuseBot or shine, please wear appropriate footwear and
ensemble, we have contributions from Europe, clothes for the weather. This is a partner event
Australia, and North America. Curated by Arne with Vancouver New Music who are dedicated
Eigenfeldt and Oliver Bown to exploring and contextualizing new music and
sonic art, through concert presentations, festival,
community, and workshop events. Curated by
Philippe Pasquier and Giorgio Magnanesi.
Jean Routhier sonic works embrace the
leeting silences, the physical, as well as, emo-
tional reactions to listening. His practice can
materialize as: soundwalks, altered ield record-
ings, acousmatic works, performances, installa-
tions, and radio broadcasts. Routhier’s produc-
tions challenge our common expectations of what
can be interpreted as musical. His audio sculpture
Une Suite de Temps-morts: iona, is a scheduled
ISEA2015 partner event called Oscillations to
be held on August 16 at 8PM in Charleson Park.
Recent projects include: The Voyage, a perfor-
mance with Carey Dodge in Vancouver, and Une
Suite de Temps-morts: N_R.Y, an installation at
Open Space Gallery in Victoria, BC, Canada.

198 I S E A 2015
 war in Gaza and the Ferguson protest, and what
Basma Alsharif, they say about us. R-Shief issues a global call for
CAMP (Shaina Anand participants to view, study, and use its unique and
colossal archive – as a form of counter-surveil-
and Ashok Sukumaran),
lance. Shereen Sakr will talk about these ideas
Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and more, preceding her performance.
and Joe Gerhardt), Nicky Hamlyn,
Cao Fei, Ahmed Kamel,
Mounir Fatmi, Naz Shahrokh,
VJ Um Amel (Laila Shereen Sakr)
I N F O R M AT I O N E RU P T S
I N T O P E RC E P T I O N
Curated by Samirah Alkassim and Laura U. Marks

This program comprises two parts, a screening of

short works and a live performance. These works
identify patterns of information that lie below vis-
ible and audible thresholds and bring them into
perception. Drawn largely but not entirely from
the Arab world, the ilms, videos, video database
(CAMP), and live cinema performance (VJ Um
Amel) are all alert to seemingly random patterns
that, when organized into information, can be
rendered audiovisually. Moiré patterns, shadow
puppets, analog video decay, surveillance tech-
nology, and other media collect and give shape to
disavowed histories and the voices of the earth.
In some cases these acts of translation permit
a heightened political analysis. In others, they
unfold histories, places, and events from dry data
into the sensory responses of the viewer. Laila
Shereen Sakr, aka VJ Um Amel, is known for
her founding and ongoing work with the R-Shief
project that uses social media extraction and
data analysis of contemporary global struggles,
people’s movements and national crises (using
Egypt and the US as her targets) to study our
communications over such crises as the recent

PERFORMANCE 199
ALGORAVE

Fortune With thanks to Victoria Moulder,

Sound Club Performance Chair, ISEA2015
Philippe Pasquier,
Metacreation Lab

ISEA2015 presents a historic opportunity to The Algorave movement originated in the

stage Vancouver’s irst Algorave. An Algorave is a computer music research community and over
live performance of danceable music that is gen- the past decade has become popular in the U.K.
erated from algorithms, often using live coding and across Europe. For this groundbreaking event
techniques, so that instead of playing synthesiz- at ISEA2015 we are excited to present a group of
ers, drums, and keyboards, the artists generate generative system developers and composers as
sound by writing code. Starting from a blank page well as live coding artists from around the globe.
these artists create music making algorithms
with programming languages such as IXI Lang,
Overtone, Puredata, Max/MSP, SuperCollider,
Impromptu, Fluxus and Tidal.

201
Oliver Bown
H A M S T E R AT E M Y
GA R AG E B A N D
Homage to Studio Vision Pro
Generative System developed in Java (2015)

In Homage to Studio Vision Pro, Ollie Bown builds

on his practice of live generative music perfor-
mance that was developed during his collabo-
rations with electronic music duo Icarus and in
various electroacoustic improvisations. The title
of the work refers to Studio Vision Pro, a digital Shawn Lawson
audio workstation similar to Cubase and Logic, + Ryan Ross Smith
which has superior capacity for MIDI manipula-
tions and a powerful audition tool that Icarus S A R L AC C
adapted for live performance. Studio Vision Pro Live Coding (2015)
was dropped in 1999 when their parent company
Opcode was acquired by Gibson. This project is Sarlacc is an audio-visual performance that fea-
Bown’s simpliied imitation of the powerful Studio tures visuals live coded within the OpenGL frag-
Vision Pro audition tool, but with generative ele- ment shader that are reactive to incoming audio
ments built in along the way. frequencies parsed by band. Sarlacc merges ele-
Ollie Bown is a researcher and maker work- ments of EDM, J-Pop, Gif-Culture, and mechani-
ing with creative technologies. He comes from a cal and electronic-inspired audio and visuals. The
highly diverse academic background spanning overall experience is unequal parts pop-culture,
social anthropology, evolutionary and adap- abstract expressionism, and glitch-art.
tive systems, music informatics and interac- Shawn Lawson is an experiential media art-
tion design, with a parallel career in electronic ist exploring the computational sublime through
music and digital art spanning over 15 years. He live-coding and real-time computer graphics. He
is interested in how artists, designers and musi- has performed in England, Denmark, Russia, Italy,
cians can use advanced computing technologies Korea, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Turkey, Malaysia,
to produce complex creative works. His current Iran, Canada, and across the USA. MFA received
research areas include media multiplicities, musi- from SAIC. He is an Associate Professor at the
cal metacreation, the theories and methodolo- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).
gies of computational creativity, new interfaces Ryan Ross Smith is a composer and per-
for musical expression, and multi-agent models former. His research focuses on animated nota-
of social creativity. He is a Senior Lecturer at the tional practices. Smith has performed throughout
Faculty of Art and Design at the University of New the U.S., Europe and the U.K. He is a PhD candi-
South Wales, Australia. date at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

202 I S E A 2015
Marinos Giannoukakis
THE SECRET LIFE OF
B U R T O N ( DA N C E
VERSION)
Live Coding (2015)

the secret life of Burton is part of an anthol-

ogy of real time narratives named “X short sto-
ries” that investigate different aspects of narra-
tive construction in multimodal environments.
“Transconsistent composition”, a name derived
for these practices by the artist, is a systemic
approach to the construction and interpretation of
meaning based on processes and gestures such
as framing, gesture, and temporal sequencing.
Marinos Giannoukakis is a digital artist inter-
ested in real time immersive performance. He is
working on a Ph.D at De Montfort University with
Bret Battey and John Young, where he researches
real time narrative strategies with real time audio
and game engines. He is based in Leicester, U.K.

A L G O R AV E 203
Arne Eigenfeldt Alex McLean
B E AT S B Y G E S M I UNTITLTED
Generative System developed in MAX (2014) Live Coding (2015)

GESMI is a fully autonomous computationally This work is a from-scratch “blank slate” live cod-
creative system that generates style-speciic ing performance, improvising percussive techno,
electronic dance music based upon a machine- and occasionally bringing in and remixing ele-
analysed corpus. The corpus consists of 24 ments from Peak Cut EP.
Breakbeat and 24 House tracks that have been Alex McLean a.k.a. Yaxu makes broken
transcribed by human experts. Aspects of tran- techno using his live coding system Tidal. He co-
scription include musical details, timbral descrip- founded the TOPLAP live coding and Algorave
tions, signal processing, and descriptions of over- movements, and has performed widely since
all musical form. This information is then compiled the year 2000 in many collaborations including
in a database, and machine-analysed to produce Slub and Canute, and at many festivals including
data for generative purposes. GESMI began pro- Sonar, Club Transmediale, Sonic Acts, Earzoom,
ducing complete breakbeat tracks in March 2013. NODE, Ars Electronica, Dissonanze, Lovebytes
loadbang (Arne Eigenfeldt) is a composer and STRP.
and creator of computationally creative musical
systems. His EDM system – GESMI – has been
presented at festivals in Australia, Italy, Brazil,
and Canada. He is based in Vancouver.

204 I S E A 2015
Norah Lorway
T E C H N O / AC I D H O U S E
Live Coding (2015)

This work is algorithmic, procedural techno with

a twist of acid house. Norah Lorway will perform
a live coding Algorave set that is similar to her
recent raves in Belgium, Slovenia, and the U.K.
amongst others. The performance will feature live
coding techno and acid house in SuperCollider
and Fluxus.

A L G O R AV E 205
AV
DISRUPTION

Wong With thanks to Victoria Moulder,

Theatre Performance Chair, ISEA2015
Philippe Pasquier,
Metacreation Lab

AV Disruption brings together a program of audio,

and audio video performances that exemplify what
it means to bridge research and practice. The four
performances are solidly grounded in academic
research, whether in computer music or gen-
erative and interactive systems. Instead of simply
using the current software available to produce
audio-video pieces, the artists in this program
have developed custom software to craft unique
audio visual systems and instruments that result in
new and disruptive audio visual experiences.

207
Greg Beller
BABIL-ON
AV EXP (2013)

Babil-on is a performance of augmented musi-

cal theater which metaphorically describes the
fate of speech. If the birth of speech is marked by
the enjoyment of phontation and the purity of the
vowel, then babbling creates a hiccup of excite-
ment and laughs when in crisis. At this moment
an accident occurs: the irruption of a consonant.
Through contagion, burst of disruption, and a
continuous stream of linguistic actions, we can
eventually impoverish the vocal material. In this
work the word is exhausted by pure singing that Chris Vik and Brad Hammond
allows us a return to original breath.
Greg Beller works as an artist, a researcher,
VEX
a teacher and a computer designer for contempo- Performance (2013)
rary arts. He defended a PhD thesis in Computer
Science on generative models for expressiv- Vex is broken geometry. You can hear it screech
ity and their applications for speech and music, and groan as it undulates under pressure, until
especially through performance. He takes part in the moment it snaps and explodes into a furious
a range of artistic projects while developing new and broken – but perfectly synchronised – dance
ideas for signal analysis, processing, synthesis of both sound and form. A behavioural computa-
and control. He is currently a computer-music tion model directs Vex’s geometric movements,
designer at IRCAM where he works with research- which in turn conducts its granular soundtrack.
ers, composers and directors in the creation, the Vex never repeats itself. Its visual and sonic con-
design and the performance of artistic projects. tours tightly follow a seemingly natural pattern
of movement, randomly disrupted by the broken
algorithms that drive it. Vex takes you on a jour-
ney between the ambient and the violent.
Chris Vik is an Australian sound artist and
performer with a practice that focuses on inter-
active and generative audio installations, perfor-
mance and software. In recent years Chris has
worked heavily with motion capture as a tool
for musical expression, as well as focusing on
the interplay between interaction and algorith-
mic process. For three years Chris Vik and Brad
Hammond have created works together that
focus on breaking down the barriers between
human and digital worlds.

208 I S E A 2015
 Christopher Anderson is a multi-disciplinary
music artist and performer, investigating alter-
native approaches to compositional and perfor-
mance models using generative and computation-
ally assistive systems. His recent compositions
for electronics and trombone explore embedded
generative processes in live performance and
improvisational systems. Chris is a graduate of
Capilano University’s Jazz Studies program and
he has a Master’s of Fine Arts fromf Simon Fraser
University’s School of Contemporary Arts. He is
also an occasional sessional instructor and has
been a research assistant involved in explor-
ing generative electronic music within the SFU’s
Metacreation lab.

Christopher Anderson
ONNEXTCOUNT
Live Trombone and MAX programs (2015)

OnNextCount uses a generative music system

that directly relates the compositional gestures
of the author playing Trombone to the frame of
structured improvisation. The piece explores
alternative ways to engage in electronic music
performance and representation. The improvi-
satorial and generative elements used within
this performance are in dialogue with human
and machine autonomy, disruptive aesthetics
and the ephemeral. OnNextCount is performed
using Ableton Live software and uses an embed-
ded Max for Live system to generate new musical
material and signal-processed gestures.

AV D I S R U P T I O N 209
UVB 76 a.k.a Gaëtan Bizien
and Tioma Tchoulanov
T R A N S M I S S I O N [ V . 2]
Performance, (2014)

TRANSMISSION [v.2] is an audiovisual perfor-

mance that explores the place of electronic inter-
faces in our society. In this work, different media
such as television, computer screens, monitors,
GPS, drones, and satellite views are explored,
remixed, repurposed, and disrupted. The design
integrates the visual and noise disturbances from
these technologies in order to produce a visual
experience where degenerative alterations are
part of the creative process. These aesthetic
choices allow the audience to consider unpredict-
able and disruptive elements as tools of expres-
sion that evoke dystopia.
UVB 76 is a French duo behind the Parisian
label and collective Dot Data. Focused on elec-
tronic and experimental music and digital arts,
their work is multidisciplinary and combines
graphic work with sound research. From dance
music performances in clubs to surround sound
concerts, audiovisual installations and perfor-
mances, UVB 76 has performed at venues such
as Centre George Pompidou, Transient Festival,
Forum Mondial de la Langue Française.

210 I S E A 2015
211
List of Contributors

Caroline Seck Langill, Dean of Liberal Arts and Brian McBay is an artist, designer and cura-
Sciences and the School of Interdisciplinary tor based in Vancouver, Canada. In 2005 he co-
Studies at OCAD University, is a Peterborough- founded 221A, an artist-controlled non-proit
based writer and artist who curates, researches organization that explores the role of design in
and theorizes new media art in an attempt to rec- the shaping of society, where he is currently the
tify art historical exclusions of art engaged with Director. McBay has been invited to speak inter-
technology. Her website Shifting Polarities for the nationally as a critic of design ideology and as
Daniel Langlois Foundation tracks the history of an advocate for artist-determined culture with an
electronic media in Canada. Recent publications emphasis on spatial politics. He recently founded
include The Menace of Things for the Cronenberg 221A’s new outdoor site Semi-Public, a 10-year
Virtual Museum and The Living Effect for Relive, rotating program of contemporary art in an empty
MIT Press. She is co-investigator with Dr. Lizzie lot in Chinatown, where he curated the inaugural
Muller on two SSHRC projects to examine the project by artist Ken Lum.
implications of exhibition for lively objects.

Sarah Joyce and Gordon Duggan (Joyce +

Lizzie Muller is a curator and researcher special- Duggan) are the Director/Curator team for the
izing in interdisciplinary collaboration, interac- New Media Gallery in New Westminster, metro
tion and audience experience. Previous curato- Vancouver. NMG is the City of New Westminster’s
rial projects include Awfully Wonderful: Science civic gallery. They have international experience
Fiction in Contemporary Art (with Bec Dean, in contemporary art & design with a focus on
Sydney, 2011); The Art of Participatory Design electronic media, new media art, and art-based
(with Lian Loke, Sydney 2010) and Mirror States technologies. They have expertise in exhibi-
(with Kathy Cleland, Sydney and Auckland, tion development, art curation, visual culture
2008). Recent publications include The Return theory, design, electronic media conservation
of the Wonderful: Monanisms and the undisci- and gallery management. They have helped
plined objects of media art in Studies in Material develop international Best Practice and Gallery
Thinking. Lizzie is co-investigator with Caroline Standards in arts and culture, design and con-
Langill on two SSHRC funded research projects servation. They have worked in both the public
on post-disciplinarity and media art exhibition. and private sectors. At Tate Gallery and Lisson,
She is Director of the Masters in Curating and as private curators and at NMG they have worked
Cultural Leadership at UNSW Faculty of Art and with many of the world’s leading contemporary
Design, Australia. artists and art galleries. They are advocates for
freedom of expression in the arts, co-founding
the Art Appropriation Coalition.

213
Caitlin Jones is the Executive Director of the Wil Aballe is the founder and director of Wil
Western Front Society in Vancouver, BC. Prior Aballe Art Projects, or WAAP. Founded in 2013,
to this appointment she had a combined curato- WAAP exhibits an emerging and established array
rial and conservation position at the Solomon R. of internationally-renowned artists, but most
Guggenheim Museum, and was the Director of notably, the younger generation of Vancouver
Programming at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in art practitioners. The program is comprised of a
New York. As a curator and researcher Jones has series of “art projects”, interdisciplinary, concept-
also been responsible for developing important oriented and space-based exhibitions in a variety
tools and policy for the preservation and docu- of media including sculpture, video, sound, paint-
mentation of electronic and ephemeral artworks. ing, printmaking, photography and performance.
She was a staff writer for Rhizome and her other Its editions program feature contributions by the
writings on contemporary art and new media have brightest Canadian artists internationally and
appeared in a wide range of periodicals and other are coveted by collectors. During its inaugural 2
international publications including The Believer, years, WAAP was located in a live-work studio
Art Lies, Cory Arcangel: A New Fiesta in the in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant and was con-
Making (exhibition catalog), Nam June Paik: Global ceived to be both a private and public art view-
Groove 2004 (exhibition catalog) and the upcom- ing experience. The gallery held solo, duo and
ing edition of the Documents of Contemporary Art curated group exhibitions, as well as site-speciic
series published by Whitechapel Gallery and MIT pop up shows in venues such as the Burrard
Press. Arts Foundation, Gallery 295 and South Creek
Landing. It also hosts performances and lectures
several times a year.
Diana Freundl is Associate Curator at the
Vancouver Art Gallery. She has an academic
background in comparative religion and phi- WAAP is now located near Clark and Hastings at
losophy with graduate studies in journalism. 1356 Frances St in a semi-industrial space that
She was a staff reporter in Taipei, Taiwan cov- provides new opportunities for a multivalent set
ering arts and features before moving to Beijing of ambitious presentations.
to study at the Tsinghua Academy of Arts and
Design. She was a curator at the Museum
of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Shanghai and
later artistic director of Art+ Shanghai Gallery,
Shanghai before moving to Canada in 2013.

214 I S E A 2015
Dene Grigar is Professor and Director of The Barry Truax is a Professor in the School of
Creative Media and Digital Culture Program at Communication and (formerly) the School for the
Washington State University Vancouver whose Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University
research focuses on the creation, curation, pres- where he teaches courses in acoustic communi-
ervation, and criticism of Electronic Literature, cation and electroacoustic composition, special-
speciically building multimedial environments izing in soundscape composition. He has worked
and experiences for live performance, installa- with the World Soundscape Project, editing its
tions, and curated spaces; desktop computers; Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, and has pub-
and mobile media devices. She has authored 14 lished a book Acoustic Communication dealing
media works such as Curlew (2014), A Villager’s with all aspects of sound and technology. As a
Tale (2011), the 24-Hour Micro E-Lit Project (2009), composer, Truax is best known for his work with
When Ghosts Will Die (2008), and Fallow Field: A the PODX computer music system which he has
Story in Two Parts (2005), as well as 52 scholarly used for tape solo works and those which com-
articles. She also curates exhibits of electronic bine tape with live performers or computer graph-
literature and media art, mounting shows at the ics. A selection of these pieces may be heard on
Library of Congress and for the Modern Language the recording Sequence of Earlier Heaven, and the
Association, among other venues. With Stuart Compact Discs Digital Soundscapes, Paciic Rim,
Moulthrop (U of Wisconsin Milwaukee) she is the Song of Songs, Inside, Islands, and Twin Souls,
recipient of a 2013 NEH Start Up grant for a digital all on the Cambridge Street Records label, as
preservation project for early electronic literature, well as the double CD of the opera Powers of Two
entitled Pathinders, which culminated into a open and the most recent CDs, Spirit Journies and The
source, multimedia book for scholars. Grigar is Elements and Beyond. In 1991 his work, Riverrun,
President of the Electronic Literature Organization was awarded the Magisterium at the International
and Associate Editor for Leonardo Reviews. Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges,
France, a category open only to electroacoustic
composers of 20 or more years experience. He is
Alain Mongeau is the founder and Director of also the recipient of one of the 1999 Awards for
MUTEK. A Doctor of Communications, Alain was Teaching Excellence at Simon Fraser University.
Program Chair of ISEA95 Montreal, the sixth Barry is an Associate Composer of the Canadian
International Symposium of Electronic Arts, and Music Centre and a founding member of the
directed ISEA’s head ofice from 1996 to 2000. He Canadian Electroacoustic Community and the
was also in charge of the New Media division of World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.
the Montréal International Festival of New Cinema
from 1997 to 2001. MUTEK is a Montréal based
organization dedicated to the exploration and pro-
motion of digital creativity and electronic music,
founded in 2000. Its central platform is the annual
MUTEK festival in Montréal, which has become
an essential North American reference point for
international artists, industry professionals and
diverse audiences. MUTEK also maintains activi-
ties around the world, including annual events in
Mexico City, Bogota and Barcelona.

215
Elisa Ferrari is a Vancouver based artist and Samirah Alkassim is an independent docu-
curator concerned with the intersections of archi- mentary ilmmaker and ilm educator with many
val practice and liminal space. In her work she years experience living and working in the MIddle
combines audio- visual- and text- fragments East. She has over 12 years experience teach-
to examine the aporias that exist between past ing ilm production and studies in Singapore,
experience and present depiction, memory and Cairo, Jordan, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
narrative. She has worked for the Venice Biennale, Formerly head of the ilm program at the American
Interactive Futures and Emily Carr University University in Cairo. Some of her published arti-
Teaching and Learning Centre. Over the years cles include “Cracking the Monolith: Film and
she has contributed to several non-proit orga- Video Art in Egypt” (New Cinemas: Journal of
nizations and community projects including Contemporary Film, April 2004), and “Tracing
RAM Radio Arte Mobile and more recently the an Archaeology of Experimental Video in Cairo”
Vancouver Soundwalk Collective. Elisa holds (Nebula, April 2006).
a MA in Media Arts from Emily Carr University
and a BA in Visual and Performing Arts from the
University of Architecture of Venice. Ferrari is Laura U. Marks is a scholar, theorist, and pro-
Events + Exhibitions curator at VIVO. grammer of independent and experimental media
arts. She works on the media arts of the Arab
world, intercultural perspectives on new media
Yasmin Nurming-Por is an independent cura- art, and philosophical approaches to material-
tor currently based in Toronto, where she com- ity and information culture. Her most recent
pleted her M.A. in Art History at the University books are Enfoldment and Ininity: An Islamic
of Toronto in 2013. She currently holds the posi- Genealogy of New Media Art (MIT Press, 2010)
tion of Exhibitions and Gallery Manager at Diaz and Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving
Contemporary in Toronto. Recent projects include: Image (MIT Press, 2015). She has curated pro-
BLIND WHITE (Toronto); AT SEA (Collingwood); grams of experimental media for festivals and
and ARCTICNOISE (Vancouver). Her research art spaces worldwide. She teaches in the School
has focused on the intersection of public per- for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser
formance, community, and temporal dissidence University, Vancouver.
in conceptual practices in Eastern Europe and
Latin America. Yasmin is invested in examining
the potential for ephemeral and art-based work to
provoke, intervene in, and engage with discourse
around the idea of community. Yasmin has held
research and programming positions at various
Canadian and International artist-run centres and
galleries, and was a recipient of the Robert and
Jacqueline White Graduate Scholarship.

216 I S E A 2015
Philippe Pasquier is Associate Professor Thecla Schiphorst is Associate Director and
and Graduate Program Chair at Simon Fraser Associate Professor in the School of Interactive
University’s School of Interactive Arts and Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University
Technology. He is both a scientist specialized in in Vancouver, Canada. Her background in dance
artiicial intelligence and a multi-disciplinary artist. and computing form the basis for her research
His contributions range from theoretical research in embodied interaction, focusing on movement
in artiicial intelligence, multi-agent systems and knowledge representation, tangible and wearable
machine learning to applied artistic research and technologies, media and digital art, and the aes-
practice in digital art, computer music, and gen- thetics of interaction. Schiphorst is the recipient
erative art. Philippe is the Chair and investigator of the 1998 PetroCanada Award in New Media, a
of the AAAI series of international workshop on biennial award presented to a Canadian Artist for
Musical Metacreation (MUME), the MUME-WE their contribution to innovation in art & technology
concerts series and the International workshop on in Canada. Her media art installations have been
Movement and Computation (MOCO). He has co- exhibited internationally in Europe, Canada, the
authored over 100 peer-reviewed contributions. United States and Asia in many venues including
Ars Electronica, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival
(DEAF), Future Physical, Siggraph, the Wexner
Centre for the Arts, the Canadian Cultural Centre
in Paris, and the London ICA.

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Malcolm Levy is an artist and curator based in Kate Armstrong is a Vancouver-based artist,
Vancouver, Canada. He is the co-founder and writer, and independent curator producing exhi-
Artistic Director of the New Forms Festival (1999– bitions, events and publications in contemporary
present), and was the curator of CODE Live at the media art in Vancouver, Canada and internation-
2010 Winter Olympics, where he oversaw the ally. She is a founder of Revised Projects and co-
installation of over 40 interactive media artworks directed the Goethe Satellite, an initiative of the
and 8 performances across the city. He is Artistic Goethe-Institut to produce 10 exhibitions and
Director of ISEA2015 with Kate Armstrong. His commissions in Vancouver between 2011—2013.
work was recently shown at WAAP (Vancouver, Recent curatorial projects include the electronic
2015), Transfer (NY, 2015), ISEA2014 (Dubai, literature commission Tributaries and Text-Fed
2014), CSA (Vancouver, 2014) Supermarkt (Berlin, Streams (2008) for the Capilano Review, Group
2013) Audain Gallery (When we stop and they Show (2010) for the Vancouver Winter Olympics,
begin, Vancouver, 2012), Occupy Wall Street Electric Speed (2011—2012) for the Surrey Art
(New York, 2011), Grimmuseum (Framework, Gallery, Extract: Text Works from the Archive (2012)
Berlin, 2011), Nuit Blanche (A Place to Relect) for grunt gallery and Live/Work and Hypercube
(Nuit Blanche Toronto 2011) and Transmission (2013) for the New Forms Festival. Armstrong is
(Victoria, 2011). Other recent projects include the author of Crisis & Repetition: Essays on Art
developing a media lab for the grunt gallery in and Culture (Michigan State University Press,
Vancouver, working on a Satellite project for the 2002). Other books include Medium (2011), Source
Goethe Institut, and producing a series of com- Material Everywhere (2011), and the 12 volume
missioned artworks for Urban Screens in con- Path (2008/2012). Armstrong is Director of Living
nection with McLuhan in Europe 2011. He is the Labs at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and
founder and Director of Hybridity. Comprised of a Artistic Director of ISEA2015.
music label, a curatorial and consulting division,
and a project team installation artwork and soft-
ware development, Hybridity is made up of a col-
lection of artists, producers, thinkers, and tech-
nicians. Malcolm is completing his MA in Media
Studies at the New School.

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