Superconduction
Organized by:
LABORATORIA Art&Science Foundation
Curator:
Daria Parkhomenko
Artists:
::vtol:: (Russia)
Memo Akten (Turkey-UK)
Quayola (Italy)
Ralf Baecker (Germany)
Daniel Goddemeyer, Moritz Stefaner, Dominikus Baur (Germany)
Lev Manovich (USA)
Nemo Gould (USA)
Semiconductor (UK)
Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits, Martins Ratniks (Latvia)
Miha Turšič, Špela Petrič (Slovenia)
Where dogs run (Russia)
Partners:
Technical Partner:
The era of new technologies lead humans to super-speeds – not only reactive engines, super processors, instant communication, and the human himself becomes augmented, getting closer to the dream of super-humanity.
Forms
video installation, 2012
photo: Vjacheslav Shishlov
“Superconduction” becomes a metaphor of the processes in economical and social systems. This state is characterised by the absence of mediators, similar to Nikola Tesla’s lossless transmission of energy. Nowadays these notions are embodied in Bitcoin currency, where transactions are implemented almost instantly and directly. Scientists expand limits of space to discover the Universe, introducing global connectivity as integral part of our life, and at the same time allow to communicate on the new level with outer world and with other living beings.
Osadok / Aftertaste
interactive installation, 2011
photo: Vadim Bazaly
These new realities are captured by science art, where artists like “superconductors” work in collaboration with scientists, take part in research projects, act not only as visionaries and interpreters but challenging scientific developments and being catalyzers of the science future development. The artistic interpretation becomes the superconductor between science and society, being able to further transmit breakthrough ideas to the wider audience.
::vtol:: (Russia)
Silk
robotic sound installation, 2015
photo: Vadim Bazaly
The installation is tracking the real time changes in the market activities related to cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Litecoin – independent and uncontrolled by any state peer-to-peer payment systems based on Blockchain technology. Constantly changing currency rate of Bitcoin against major world currencies is influencing the strain of strings in installation and the way the picks are hitting them. The robotic system of the artwork is directed by a computer algorithm: influenced by dynamic changes of data, the installation sounds like a complex micro-chromatic instrument.
Collection of SDVentures
Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits and Mārtiņs Ratniks / RIXC (Latvia)
Talk to me
interactive installation, 2011
photo: Vadim Bazalyy
Interactive installation Talk to Me introduces the idea of global connectivity between humans and other species. There are scientific hypotheses that communicating with plants makes them grow better. In Talk to Me, the artists developed an online interface which allows people to ‘talk’ to the plants remotely, uniting them into an international network.
The installation consists of two ‘participating’ plants in two SDVentures offices – the one plant is located in Riga, and the another one – in Moscow: visitors from Riga can send encouraging messages to Moscow plant, and vice versa, to help them growing taller, stronger and more beautiful.
This artistic research project is exploring the new post-media era, in which the separated networking systems – such as social, biological and electronic – now interrelate and intersect.
Špela Petrič, Miha Turšič (Slovenia)
Voyager/ 140 AU
video informance, 2013-2014
photo: Vadim Bazaly
Voyager/ 140 AU investigates the possible forms of artistic practices in open space, the fusion of art and science and the processes of space culturalization. Space exploration programs alongside the recent biotechnological and digital advances bring forth the consideration that a universe populated with artificial life might soon become one of the forces recalibrating the human condition.
The project presents a simple metabolic automaton, a reciprocal algorithm fed with data from the Voyager 2 PLS instrument that generates proto-living oscillations with emergent characteristics, which will, once uploaded to the probe’s computer, send mathematically abstracted signs of life into the universe.Memo Akten (Turkey-UK), Quayola (Italy)
Forms
video installation, 2012
photo: Vjacheslav Shishlov
These animations are series of studies on human motion, and its reverberations through space and time. Rather than focusing on observable trajectories, this project explores techniques of extrapolation to sculpt abstract forms, visualizing unseen relationships – power, balance, grace and conflict – between the body and its surroundings. The source for the study is footage from the Commonwealth Games.
Forms investigates athletes; pushing their bodies to their extreme capabilities, their movements shaped by an evolutionary process targeting a winning performance. Traditionally a form of entertainment in today’s society with an overpowering competitive edge, various sport disciplines are deconstructed and interrogated from an exclusively mechanical and aesthetic point of view; concentrating on the invisible forces generated by and influencing the movement.
Semiconductor (UK)
20Hz
3D video installation, 2011
photo: Vadim Bazaly
The video sculpture 20 Hz allows viewers to see invisible solar magnetic storm occurring in the Earth upper atmosphere. The artists use scientific data collected by CARISMA* – captured at the frequency of 20 Hertz –and interpreted it as audio, allowing us to hear and see the ‘tweets’ and ‘rumbles’ caused by the interaction of solar wind with the Earth magnetosphere. As different frequencies interact both visually and aurally, complex patterns emerge to create interference phenomena that probe the limits of our perception.
*CARISMA – Canadian Array for Realtime Investigations of Magnetic Activity
Nemo Gould (USA)
Armed and Dangerous
kinetic sculpture
photo: Vadim Bazaly
«This is a giant, multi-armed, multi-faced, dual-zombie-powered, mercury-activated, electro-mechanical monster» – thus the artist introduces his robot constructed from found objects, bits and pieces of old mechanisms. Reflecting on the images and mythology of comic books and science fiction, his artworks reconcile the innocent wonder of youth with the dull complexity of the adult experience.
But the real industrial robots have already entered our life, becoming an integral and functional part of production and soon of society; meanwhile the artists are fantasizing about their character, anticipating their human qualities.
Сollection of SDVenturesWhere Dogs Run (Russia)
Osadok / Aftertaste
interactive installation, 2011
photo: Vadim Bazaly
The artists invite the viewers to play with hidden interaction of the artwork: entering the room, the person witnesses the flow of falling potatoes. When the viewer reaches the ultimate state of meditation and is ready to turn around to leave, he or she is confronted with something unexpected: some potatoes start gazing at the leaving person with very natural-looking eyes.
The artwork brings the interactivity to the level where the intermediary of the viewer’s perception is not important – the interaction exists independent of whether the person knows this or not.
Ralf Baecker (Germany)
Crystal Set
installation, 2011
photo: Vadim Bazaly
Nowadays semiconductors are processed into transistors or integrated circuits, they become the basis of modern technology and implement rational computing.
The artist creates apparatus to «liberate» semiconducting crystals which can then generate by themselves raw and untamed signals visible and audible to the observer.
Attaching 64 iron needles to the surface of a raw specimen of silicon carbide and building a semiconducting transition at the contact point, the artist «sets free» this crystal and allows it to express its natural qualities, giving it the «voice» and «light».
Daniel Goddemeyer, Moritz Stefaner, Dominikus Baur (Germany), Lev Manovich (USA)
ON BROADWAY
interactive installation, 2015
photo: Vadim Bazaly
ON BROADWAY is an interactive art work which reimagines a city in the age of big data. It uses 30 million images and data points from Instagram, Twitter, Foursquare, Google Street View, taxi rides, and other sources.
The result is a new representation of a city created from the activities of hundreds of thousands of people sharing content on social networks. The project is a result of a collaboration between a team of data artists, designers and cultural theorists, Software Studies Initiative and graduate students from The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).
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