marianne
taymani
Power station of art, Shanghai
The importance of an entrance
`The edifice of the power station of art in Shanghai and the interior was outstanding. I walked under a towering power station, with an electricity tower to enter and see a huge installation based staircase, and before entering an exhibition there was a flickering movie screen to heighten awe and anticipation.
The first exhibition had works looking at newspapers, old photos and text.
I liked the use of old media and wooden frames to create a graphic and also minimalistic look. Furthermore, the grid-like clustering of an old illustration or snippet from a newspaper together on the wall was simplistic and visually pleasing.
John Wood and Paul Harrison
John Wood born in 1969 in Hong Kong, China and Paul Harrison born in 1966 in Wolverhampton, UK live and work in Bristol.
They started working together in 1993. They explore the world around them through a series of video works, Informative and uninformative text pieces, drawings, doodles and sculptures,
The sense humour is characteristic, signifying an optimistic proposition that informs the artists' work overall. The work investigates how a person interacts with an object, the relationship between the human figure and architecture developed with particular emphasis on actions being formulated and resolved within a given duration.
Many of their works stem from explorations of contemporary dance. They were inspired by a wide range of sources such as structural and film and slapstick comedy while investigating the laws of gravity and motion,
One video showed the artists at a loss on a craggy snow capped summit "unrealistic mountaineers:. This playfully critiques our ambitions to take not he world and more. by re-enacting scenarios that were once accompanied by a world dominating narrative (the first moon landing or the conquest of Everest)- the short video works quietly to subvert the epic and original tale. the use of make-believe such a model making and yarn furthers this ideology.
Emmanuel Carliier
The main theme of Emmanuel Carliier (born 1959 in Paris, France) is to explore the relationship between image and time.
Temps mort
A text by Stephanie Zagdanski published in l'autre journal 1993, provides the original inspiration to the experiment shown above.
"To annihilate time, to settle in a never-dead time, to kill time in order to kill death."
In this photograph, time is stopped, but so too is space; in amovie shot one can navigate space but also pass through time. However, neither of these two mediums can navigate space while suspending time. In theory their genes could be crossed and the experiments above are a result of this.
The man with a glass of water
for this experiment 50 Lubitel cameras are fixed on a circular wooden plate at equal distance from each other and orientated towards the centre of the circle where the subject, a young man holding a g lass of water is located, WIth the room in complete darkness, the devices are triggered with long exposures. the man splashes the glass into his face, with impressions made on the film by carefully timing a group of flashes, We see each moment, the liquid becomes solid and the man is frozen in a grim expression, becoming a living sculpture which escapes the logic of time,
Emmanuel Carliier
The main theme of Emmanuel Carliier (born 1959 in Paris, France) is to explore the relationship between image and time.
Temps mort
A text by Stephanie Zagdanski published in l'autre journal 1993, provides the original inspiration to the experiment shown above.
"To annihilate time, to settle in a never-dead time, to kill time in order to kill death."
In this photograph, time is stopped, but so too is space; in amovie shot one can navigate space but also pass through time. However, neither of these two mediums can navigate space while suspending time. In theory their genes could be crossed and the experiments above are a result of this.
The man with a glass of water
for this experiment 50 Lubitel cameras are fixed on a circular wooden plate at equal distance from each other and orientated towards the centre of the circle where the subject, a young man holding a g lass of water is located, WIth the room in complete darkness, the devices are triggered with long exposures. the man splashes the glass into his face, with impressions made on the film by carefully timing a group of flashes, We see each moment, the liquid becomes solid and the man is frozen in a grim expression, becoming a living sculpture which escapes the logic of time,
This piece really captivated me, seeing the same moment from different angles and what should be a video of motion suddenly still piqued my interest. In addition, the themes of combatting time to prolong a fleeting moment long enough for the human eye to see water as a sculpture and the man in a 360 and panoramic view without moving is both fascinating and inspirational.
Shiro Takatani
Born in 1963, Japan. After graduating from Kyoto City university of the arts, Shiro Takatani co-founded dumb type in 1984 with other students from the university and since then has been invovled especially with the visual and technical aspects, He became artistic director of the group and by 1998 had started an active solo career.
He was the origin of he 3D water matrix project but also had been incorporating water into his work for many years; for example in the form of fog for several installations.
Christian Partos
Born in 1958, Sweden, Christian Partos's past works include a portrait of his deceased mother using five thousand tiny mirrors, making a thousand light-emiting diodes jump rope creating.an endlessly spiralling constellation of babies, establishing a light-emitting spider colony and having a swarm of flying LEDs invade a metro station.
3D water Matrix
An Installation with water and light
The water Matrix was composed of 900 electrovalves, each computer controlled and they formed a square grid with 30 streams of water on each side to result in a "liquid" video display where drops replace pixels with a very low resolution (30x30 pixels/drops), essentially creating a third dimension through gravity.
The matrix itself is not the work of art but rather the medium or the interface for making the liquid creations. Thanks to this robotic machine, Christian Partos becomes a water sculptor and Shiro Takatani a filmmaker, who creates animations using water droplets that defy gravity.
Personally, I sat down and stared at the installation for minutes on end, transfixed. I didn't;t know how they did it. What intrigued me the most about this installation was the fact I had never seen water behave in such a strange way before and it was truly baffling. The piece made me think of taking something so natural such as water out of it's natural element and convoluting it to behave in truly magical ways.
Click on images or videos in the gallery above
Manon Labrecque
Born in 1965, Canada. In writing on her work, Labrecque said :
Performing is a vital factor in my creative process. I call on the body to play the role of sensor... and sometimes I use it as matter... and sometimes transfer the memories and effects to the matter... to transmute it into matter."
Labrecque was trained in contemporary dance and visual arts. Her work focuses primarily on physical sensation and movement. She has been multidisciplinary in her approach including performances, single-band video installations, drawing, sculptures and kinetic installations.
Wu Juehui
Born in 1980, Hangzhou. China. He was the founder of UFO media lab, currently teaches at the School of Intermedia Art, China academy of art concerning interactive art, bio-art, media theatre among others. His work focuses on exploring the potential interface between art and science, body and media. For example, Wu has been trying to intrude and reproduce the sense organs via popular technology in the "organ project". He uses integrated media to generate a battery of mechanical life that is aimless while existing.
Neuro Nebula 2017
Neuro Nebula is Wu Juehui's latest addition to his ongoing series "neuroscience art project" launched in 2010. Using an EEG (electroencephalography- the continuous recording of electrical brain activity) cap to capture brain waves at dozens of points inside the brain, the work visualises the brains activities as flashing lightbulbs that together form a nebula-like cluster, magnifying it's activities into an electrical field of lights. the lights vary based on individual differences- normal or pathological, calm or restlessness. Immersed in the work, what I saw was a flashing nebula of consciousness.
