INHALE MAG » DIGITAL ART

Stones Against Diamonds by Isaac Julien

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 12:34:23 +0000

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars will present the first public showing of Isaac Julien’s new work Stones Against Diamonds during Art Basel in Basel, 2015. The work, commissioned as part of the Rolls Royce Art Programme, will be shown at the Kirche Elisabethen, Basel, from 16-17 June 2015. Following the preview during the Venice Biennale last month, the video installation film will be shown on a larger scale than previously seen, as a unique site specific installation filling the magnificent interior of the imposing church across ten screens. Isaac Julien’s film draws inspiration from a letter written by Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi.

Stones Against Diamonds examines themes within her letter, where she praises the beauty of natural elements over preferred precious stones. Filming the work in remote Vatnajökull region in South East Iceland Austurland,, using the breathtaking scenery of glistening ice caves as a set for the film, Julien portrays some of the most beautiful objects as the least precious in a conventional sense. The shoot took place over five days with the crew enduring sub-zero temperatures deep in the heart of spectacular glacial caves, formed in ice over thousands of years and accessible for only a few days a year due to the harsh climate. Signature elements of Bo Bardi’s work have been incorporated into Julien’s work, including a staircase, meticulously built by hand in the ice cave during the production of the film.

In a move providing technical challenges for the fifty-strong crew, a larger version of the staircase was recreated during post-production before being merged, using CGI, replicating Bo Bardi’s famed spiral staircase. Continuing the parallels, Julien incorporates Bo Bardi’s signature easels in his film, made of glass and concrete, two elements present in the majority of her work.

The way in which Julien’s film will be installed in Basel continues this representation, as the artist will multiple screens positioned to draw direct comparison with Bo Bardi’s work. Stones Against Diamonds will be shown on a loop, repeated five times within the hour across the ten screens, each time varying slightly to add an element of surprise for the viewer. Richard Carter, Director of Global Communications, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars said, “The precision incorporated into the production of this work is demonstrated by the crew travelling to the ends of the earth to find the rarest, most beautiful natural components in order to create a piece of moving, dramatic and timeless art. This truly reflects Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, where the master craftsmen and women source the world’s finest materials to create rare, unique and exquisite motor cars, which transcend their primary function as a form of conveyance to become works of art themselves.”

more information on isaacjulien.com

photos by harold cunningham

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CAO FEI Whose Utopia? 2006 @ Tate Modern

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:46:51 +0000

”Whose Utopia? 2006 contrasts the humdrum reality of life in a lighting factory with the dreams and aspirations of its younger workers at a time of economic growth and social change in China.

Artist Cao Fei spent six months with the employees of a lighting manufacturing plant in China’s Pearl River Delta region, an industrial megalopolis that in the past two decades has attracted great numbers of migrants from poor rural areas. The artist documented the workers’ daily life, from the factory floor to their humble living quarters. At the same time she conducted interviews about their passions and ambitions beyond their day job, and invited some of the workers to be filmed performing scenes based on their responses.

The first part of the video shows workers absorbed in their repetitive tasks, acting almost as extensions of the machinery surrounding them. From the relentless rhythms of the assembly line to the busy offices and orderly stockrooms, the whole process takes on a hypnotic quality, enhanced by the eerie instrumental soundtrack. In the second part the factory aisles are animated by the fantasies of a handful of workers, seen dancing or playing guitar as their colleagues keep toiling, seemingly unaware. The final segment consists of filmed portraits of individual workers, pausing from their tasks to look straight into the camera. Such vignettes offer a glimpse into their personalities and inner lives, depicting them as much more than cogs in the collectivist machine fuelling China’s economy.

Cao Fei was born in 1978 in Guangzhou, China. She lives and works in Beijing.

Curated by Valentina Ravaglia” – description courtesy of tate.org.uk, more information available on their website. Image courtesy of Whose-utopia, My future is not a dream, 2006 © Cao Fei / Lombard-Freid Projects

Even if you are not going to be in London for the show, you can still watch the video part of ”Whose Utopia?” below. Obviously, the experience won’t be the same as being there but still, if you’re curious at least you’ve got an option!

Whose Utopia (Cao Fei, 2006) from Melvin Furnau on Vimeo.

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Delirium I: the Creator, Alex Da Corte, and Jayson Musson at ICA

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 14:00:38 +0000

Delirium I is the latest instalment in a series of works created by American artist Alex Da Corte in response to Arthur Rimbaud’s seminal poem in prose, A Season in Hell.

It transpires that hell, 140 years after the French poet published his masterpiece, isn’t other people but their mobile phones. According to Da Corte, these devices can act as a portal to our dreams or to a considerably less pleasant place. At David Risley Gallery in Copenhagen, the two rooms of Delirium I used colour, smell, texture and imagery to explore how hope and expectation can turn out to be the stuff of nightmare.

Photo: davidrisleygallery.com

Alex Da Corte was born in Camden, N.J., in 1981 and currently lives and works in Philadelphia. He received his BFA from the University of the Arts and his MFA from Yale University in 2010.

Da Corte has recently mounted solo shows and presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Artspeak, Vancouver; Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Maine; and Nudashank, Baltimore. His work has been shown at MoMA PS1, the Museum of Modern Art and the deCordova Museum, and he has participated extensively in gallery and non-profit exhibitions in the US and internationally.

In 2012, Da Corte was named a Pew Fellow in the Arts by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia.

Photo: davidrisleygallery.com

We live in our phones although we sometimes occupy space beside other people. The telephone is our closest ally, the mediator between the present and our projection of the present. It is in some ways a portal to our dreams. It can be a portal to hell if used properly.

Scene One Room One
The viewer (you) enters the room. The smell of Calvin Klein’s Obsession lingers. There is an acrylic tiled floor. Its pattern is a lattice-type grid; the spaces in between the lattice lines are mirror. It appears as if you might have to walk only on the lines for fear of falling into nothingness. There is a green mirror shelf on the wall. As you enter you see yourself in green. You are comforted. You think of money. You are happy with what you see. You are hopeful that you may find someone like that after the opening at the gallery. You walk further into the space because you see a tapestry/quilt with roses on it. You think it’s an Hermes scarf; it makes sense since you are in a fancy part of town. There are beautiful roses on it. You see red. You are lustful. You see a photo of a woman lying on the floor. You pass by the other side of the green mirror shelf. There is a bloody knife on the shelf. You wonder if the woman is okay. She is clutching the beautiful Hermes scarf. You look at the scarf closely. and realize it is covered in blood drops and spiders and scabs. This scarf is in disguise. It is covered in blood drops and spiders and scabs. It is not the silk you imagined it would be, it is a horrible nylon banner, a cheap knockoff, a myth. You didn’t notice the broken eggs on the floor because you were cloudy from the CK perfume. This place is Hell and you hope to wake up. End scene.

Photo: davidrisleygallery.com

Scene Two Room Two
The space is divided by laminated Ikea shelves. There are several knockoff Hermes scarves on the wall. There is food on the shelves and on the scarves. You want to eat it. You see two pictures of your lover. She is your monster and you are her doctor Frankenstein. You have made her all that she is and could be in your mind. You find that you are on the other end of the telephone. You have her by the bolts. You can bring her joy. You understand she is lost without you. You are cocksure. This is your home, your poem, so do what you want. You are in this space and feel comfortable, warm. You are the maker. You believe you are in control now.

Alas, all is not well. You grow hungry in the space and reach for the food. It is rubbery and tart. It provides no comfort. A telephone rings. But you see no phone. It may be your lover calling but you cannot pick up. Maybe she is calling you back. Maybe the love you made is truly the only thing that will cure your Hell. But in dreams, unfortunately, time is long and slow.

Photo: davidrisleygallery.com

Da Corte’s delirious installation is bright, striking and overwhelming. He says, “The stage sets are comprised of quilts, photographs, perfumes, plastic tiles, and sculptures. It is the fifth installment of an ongoing series of work created in relation to ‘A Season in Hell.’”

The poem was written when Rimbaud was just 18, after a tempestuous affair with his contemporary Paul Verlaine. The poem has served as inspiration for artists for over a century, and has been published alongside the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Photo: davidrisleygallery.com

Photo: coolhunting.com

Longtime friends and first-time collaborators Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson create a major new commission for ICA. Featuring lesser-known strengths in their practices—video for Da Corte and language for Musson—Easternsports is a four-channel, multilingual soap opera starring the artists, both of whom have deep Philadelphia roots. A vignette-driven update of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town—equal parts Peter Greenaway and Jim Henson, David Lynch and Duck Amuck—the work will be presented as an in-the-round video installation.Scripted by Musson and directed by Da Corte, this institutional telenovela willbe developed and filmed in the summer of 2014.

Organized by Assistant Curator Kate Kraczon. Accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Exhibited SEPTEMBER 19–DECEMBER 28, 2014 – at Institute of Contemporary art, University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Alex Da Corte & Jayson Musson: Easternsports, 2014, video still, color, sound.

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Reality In The Art Of Jeon Joonho

admin — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 09:40:23 +0000

Jeon Joonho is one of the key figures that have brought Korean contemporary art to the attention of the international contemporary art community since 2000. His international reputation was cemented by a series of video works that show people walking around inside the pictures depicted on various national currencies.

Since the early 1990s, Joonho JEON has been noted for his installation works, often consisting of sculptural pieces, video images, and paintings, that showcase his unique re-interpretations of Korean socio-political environment. The artist believes that in order to understand reality, one must surpass the given reality and perceive the subject from a different light. With a humorous and satirical undertone, JEON’s hyper-realistic works mainly focuses on the various incidents from the tumultuous Korean history, from which he attempts to elicit questions from the viewer.

Although the dominant narrative is based on Korean society, the multi-layered reality he depicts remains universal at its core with his commentary on the general conditions of human being. Notable past representations of JEON’s work include, Scai the Bathhouse in Tokyo (2009), Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris (2008) and Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York (2007). Important group exhibitions include The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2009); Moscow Biennial (2009); L’espace Louis Vuitton (2008); Nanjing Triennale, Busan Biennale (2008); Mori Art Museum (2007); Singapore Biennale (2006); Gwangju Biennale (2004). JEON was also the recipient of 2007 Grand Prix of the 27th Biennial of Graphic Art in Ljubljana and 2004 prize at the Gwangju Biennial. His works are included in the public collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Uli Sigg Foundation, Seoul Museum of Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea.

“I am a realist, especially in the sense that I am interested in revealing in my work the lifestyles, desires, conflicts and contradictions of contemporary people using a variety of media.” – Jeon Joonho

Jeon Joonho, The White House Photo courtesy of Perry Rubenstein Gallery

For Another Monument, 2004

BODHISATTVA”, 2008-9, 125 x 58 x 82 cm, Zelkova wood

“THE WHITE HOUSE”, 2005-6, Digital Animation (32′ 16”)

“SWEET VALENTINE”, 2008-9, 230 x 125 x 63 cm,
Gingko wood, Gold plated on fiberglass and resin

“Player 13″, 2007, Installation view at Arario Gallery, Korea

Joonho Jeon 《The Creature of Induction》

‘NEWS FROM NOWHERE: CHICAGO LABORATORY’

Jeon Joonho works will be on display at Gallery Hyunday Seoul starting August 29th through September 28th.

- via artnews.org , scaithebathhouse.com

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JIM CAMPBELL AT MUSEUM OF MOVING IMAGE

admin — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 10:05:06 +0000

The San-Francisco-based artist Jim Campbell (b.1956)—best known for his evocative low resolution works—is the subject of a major solo exhibition in New York at the Museum, spanning his 30-year career and featuring over 20 installations. The works range from early experimental film, interactive works, and low-resolution videos to large-scale sculptural installations. An innovator in the use of technology, Campbell integrates and manipulates computers and custom electronics into visually arresting artworks.

photo rihango.files.wordpress.com

The exhibition highlights the diverse scope of Campbell’s career, featuring an installation from his iconic series Exploded View, in which moving images—depicting birds, runners, and commuters—only become decipherable from a privileged vantage point; his low-resolution artworks including Home Movies (pictured), a large-scale grid of LEDs depicting Campbell’s own home movies, and Motion and Rest. Also on view will be a never-exhibited new work—a digital self-portrait—and the rarely shown Last Day in the Beginning of March, which features 26 suspended light bulbs accompanied by a soundscape that evokes the last day in the life of the artist’s brother.

photo hosfeltgallery.com

photo images.fastcompany.com

photo movingimage.us

photo weloveperth.net.au

photo rihango.files.wordpress.com

photo images.artnet.com

via movingimage.us

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UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS PRESENT MOMENTUM

admin — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:56:00 +0000

United Visual Artists invites you to experience Momentum, a carefully choreographed sequence of light, sound and movement, which responds to the unique space of the Curve.

Momentum consists of twelve pendulums that activate light and sound as they swing, drawing attention to the Curve’s vast arc, inviting you to journey through the space guided by your heightened senses. Each pendulum has been meticulously designed and built using steel, aluminium, and custom electronics. The sound is individual to each pendulum, prepared and tuned to seamlessly resonate as they move within the Curve.

Momentum creates an environment that has its foundations in detailed research, sophisticated computer technology and mechanical expertise. Yet, the effect is to create a space that feels wondrously transformed, one which you are invited to experience and explore.

United Visual Artists (UVA) is a London-based art practice founded by Matthew Clark, Chris Bird and Ash Nehru in 2003. The studio combines a wide range of disciplines including architecture, computer programming and technology, engineering, sculpture, performance and design. UVA’s site-specific projects – sensual, absorbing and immersive – query received assumptions about space and time, combining rigorous research with a poetic vision that confounds expectations and alters perceptions of space.

Origin by United Visual artists constructed by Coachella

Focus, London

Vanishing Point

Volume, London

via uva.co.uk

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THE WEARABLE BOOK

admin — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 14:52:29 +0000

It’s straight out of the pages of science fiction: a “wearable” book, which uses temperature controls and lighting to mimic the experiences of a story’s protagonist, has been dreamed up by academics at MIT.

The book, explain the researchers, senses the page a reader is on, and changes ambient lighting and vibrations to “match the mood”. A series of straps form a vest which contains a “heartbeat and shiver simulator”, a body compression system, temperature controls and sound.

photo flicker.com

“Changes in the protagonist’s emotional or physical state trigger discrete feedback in the wearable [vest], whether by changing the heartbeat rate, creating constriction through air pressure bags, or causing localised temperature fluctuations,” say the academics.

Dubbed “sensory fiction”, the idea was developed by Felix Heibeck, Alexis Hope and Julie Legault at MIT’s media lab. The prototype story used was James Tiptree Jr’s Hugo award-winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged in, in which the protagonist P Burke – who is deformed by pituitary dystrophy and herself experiences life through an avatar – feels “both deep love and ultimate despair, the freedom of Barcelona sunshine and the captivity of a dark damp cellar”, said the researchers.

photo flicker.com

“Sensory fiction is about new ways of experiencing and creating stories,” they write. “Traditionally, fiction creates and induces emotions and empathy through words and images. By using a combination of networked sensors and actuators, the sensory fiction author is provided with new means of conveying plot, mood, and emotion while still allowing space for the reader’s imagination. These tools can be wielded to create an immersive storytelling experience tailored to the reader.

photo flicker.com

“To explore this idea, we created a connected book and wearable [vest]. The ‘augmented’ book portrays the scenery and sets the mood, and the wearable allows the reader to experience the protagonist’s physiological emotions.”

photo flicker.com

SENSORY FICTION from Felix on Vimeo.

via theguardian.com

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LUST AND JURRIAAN SCHROFER: NONTRADITIONAL MEDIA

admin — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 14:40:32 +0000

This exhibition is inspired by the publication of the doctoral thesis by Frederike Huygen on the graphic designer, photo-book pioneer, art director, teacher, arts administrator, and environmental artist Jurriaan Schrofer.

photo stedelijk.nl

The Stedelijk Museum invited LUST, a multidisciplinary graphic design practice based in The Hague, to take part in the exhibition because of their expertise in presenting graphic design presentations with nontraditional media. LUST was asked to use cutting-edge media to create an installation that plays off, reacts to, and dialogues with Schrofer’s work. The visual dynamic of Schrofer’s typographic art suggests that his designs were created on the computer but they predate the digital era: Schrofer designed everything by hand. For LUST, though, the computer is an indispensable tool; they derive inspiration from exploring the possibilities of design for new media and technologies.

Gallery 0.29 contains a presentation of the work of Jurriaan Schrofer. The LUST installation is on view in Gallery 0.28.

photo stedelijk.nl

photo designboom.com

Type / Dynamics – Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from Stedelijk Museum on Vimeo.
via stedelijk.nl

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KNOL: PHYSICAL EXPERIENCES

admin — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:42:09 +0000

KNOL is a DESIGN studio with a sense of fiction. They design narrative spaces and human – spatial interactions.

In their daily practice, they translate the story of client into physical experiences or places. KNOL has solid experience in successfully realizing projects from idea to final implementation. Educated as both Industrial Designers and Interior Architects, they know how to make ideas tangible at different scales. To optimize the quality of our work, they always work with a network of freelance experts in various disciplines: builders and makers, programmers, cooks, electronics experts, filmmakers, legal advisors etcetera.

Transit Mantra
Far more than anything the city is a spot where we are continually in transition. Transit Mantra resounds the energy of our movements in the urban landscape. The knowledge of getting in transition now becomes a pleasant moment of reflection. A symbiosis of beautiful design and an improved sense of safety, that is how the installation ‘Transit Mantra’ is best described. Since August 2013, Eindhoven has enriched the Dutmala tunnel with this interactive light and sound sculpture. It guides cyclists and pedestrians through the dark tunnel.

photo knol-ontwerp.nl

TRANSIT MANTRA from KNOL on Vimeo.

photo knol-ontwerp.nl

KNOL is part of Studio Vacant NL. They present Inside the White Whale; large white container bags that can be used to create temporary spaces in any location imaginable. These new flexible spaces can serve a wide variety of purposes, and hereby provide an ideal strategy to colonize vacant buildings or other temporarily available places. When the big bag is used, it gives the space a double function; inside and outside. Although the space is merely divided by the thin white fabric, the meaning of the space becomes completely different. The white spaces become a new world; soft light and visual focus. New spatial use and functions can be created. The inside of the bag can become dirty while the space stays clean, or vice versa. Shown here, are three different pop-up spaces.

White Whale #1: the Barber Shop. The white big bag is turned into a new space, in which the fabric becomes the mantle of the hairdresser her client. When the cutting of the hair is finished, the hair dresser simply pulls or folds up the bag until the next client comes.

photo knol-ontwerp.nl

SKINNED is a growing collection of fragile mold-casts from places. Memorable parts of buildings and other ‘solid’ spaces can be copied endlessly into foldable skins. These thin fragments of spatial memory show specific details of the structure or material of the original place, but also capture dirt. Like skin transplantations they can be taken to other spaces where they get new spatial meaning. They take us to a world in which places are no longer fixed to specific locations, but become nomadic or ‘liquid’. The skins as shown here, are casts of several places in Amsterdam; of which most of them vacant buildings. This project was executed within the master Vacant NL at the Sandberg Institute Amsterdam.

photo knol-ontwerp.nl

SKINNED / jorien kemerink from KNOL on Vimeo.

Illuminated by 10 overhead projectors, a transparent insect city takes shape. This miniature city houses different insect species. The buildings are connected by transparent ‘highways’ to motivate the insects to mix and move around. The overheads display silhouettes of the insect movements on all surrounding walls. Visitors are on one hand looking down on the small insects, but are on the other hand drawn inside their world, through the large reflections in the space. A cook is preparing wonderful insect delicatessen in a separate space with 1000 loose grasshoppers, the BUGBAR. Bug sweets – chocolates and special lollies containing edible insects and freshly made insect sushi and tempura are served to the visitors. Viewers can look at the swarming insects from behind a large window, and can also experience a new taste sensation by trying one of the cook’s insect specialties. In cooperation with Amaro Industries.

photo knol-ontwerp.nl

via knol-ontwerp.nl

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IMMERSE INTO IREGULAR

admin — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 11:15:44 +0000

“Audience participation is at the center of our work in many levels,” says Daniel Iregui, an interactive designer with a decade’s worth of experience, accrued before forming his own firm Iregular along with François Loubert-Hudon and David Surprenant in 2010. “We do interactive experiences of all scales, from public spaces to mobile devices, and create audio-visual systems and environments with infinite combinations,” Iregui continues. The 31-year old Bogotá-born, Montreal-based artist lives and breathes installations–on a daily basis conceptualizing and designing lazer-loving immersive environments for art galleries, music festival stages, and hell, even for websites. “Our work is in constant evolution,” he says, “and doesn’t repeat itself.”