Works by Lucy McRae
The Transnatural symposium celebrates some of the more successful love affairs between the made & the born. Until March 19th you have the opportunity to see works like Bitfall, Biojewelery and Mudtub, whom you might know from the blogosphere, but are more than worth experiencing in real life. Thus recommended. Hendrik-Jan wrote a more extensive review in the local language. Taken from Next Nature
Philips Design Probe has teamed up with restaurant Arzak to create Multi-Sensorial Gastronomy – a series of crockery that transforms the experience of eating.
The term ‘molecular gastronomy’ defines a cuisine where chefs take inspiration from science and research. Beyond merely serving food on crisp, white plates, this bone china series is designed to react to food. As liquid is poured into the Lunar Eclipse bowl, a glow begins to appear from the bottom. Light begins to appear as soon as food makes contact with both the Fama long plate and the Tapa de Luz serving plate.
The series involves the integration of lighting, conductive printing, selective fragrance discharge, micro-vibration and electro stimulus among other sensory stimuli that all create an altered and interactive dining experience. The hope is that the project will generate discussion and debate about the fusion of technology and food in the future.
Light Pollution by cestomano
Research into the effects of artificial lighting on human circadian rhythms has shown increasing incidents of fatigue, depression and lowered immunity. Clearly humans are not well adapted to the new pressures of the 24-hour workplace. Disruptions in lighting also cause problems with Growth Hormone (GH) and melatonin levels which seriously affect how our bodies age and fight cancers. But perhaps more dramatically, any disturbance of cortisol can cause stress, high blood pressure and obesity, indicating that “light pollution" has completely altered our experience of the environment on both aesthetic (e.g. luminous fog) and biological levels:
"Light intrusion, even if dim, is likely to have measurable effects on sleep disruption and melatonin suppression. Even if these effects are relatively small from night to night, continuous chronic circadian, sleep and hormonal disruption may have longer-term health risks"
In a statement from the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the use of bluish-white outdoor lighting increasingly threatens human and animal life. While Philips Dynamic Lighting is an attempt to counteract the effects of static lighting scenarios, responsibility for population health must surely reside with city planning departments and ultimately Government.
Lockley, S., “Blinded by the Light?” (CfDS handbook, 2009)
Installation by Hugues Bruyère (Photo: Rodrigo Torres)
Recent explorations into presence and other user-centric modalities seriously challenge what it means to experience natural realism. The sharing of digital artefacts (audio, images, video) reflect an innately voyeuristic population who not only desires “to watch” but “be watched”. The ability of media to skew presence shows that while traditional 2D artworks may not support physical presence (with the exception of set designs and trompe l'oeil effects) immersive VR systems generally stimulate a greater sense of physical presence.
presence at FILE RIO 09 from smallfly on Vimeo.
Presence [a.k.a. Soft n' Silky] is a double sided interactive surface in which multiple co-located participants are invited to interact on both sides of the membrane, reworking assumptions about co-presence. The project offers simultaneous layers of communication performance, in which the participant's bodies are key elements of the interface. By expanding and amplifying interaction via the implication of co-present bodies, we produce an interface that engages people on the intellectual, emotional, and physical levels.
The Chimaera & the Sphinx
Scene from chapter IX in Huysmans´ Against Nature,
from the Dying Dreamer by Malin Zim
One of the earliest explorations into “hyperesthetic space” emerges from Against Nature (À rebours) by Joris-Karl Huysmans. Rebelling against the naturalism of contemporaries like Emile Zola, Huysmans’ main character Des Esseintes believes nature “has had her day” and that “the time has surely come for artifice to take her place whenever possible.” In response to the lack of aesthetic intensity in real world, Des Esseintes artificially manufactures a mind-altering virtual palette of artefacts in which to stimulate hyperesthetic experience, albeit without the social connectivity of twenty-first century cyberspace.
Interestingly, Des Esseintes does not acquire hyperaesthetic artefacts for social status, the transformative experience of the artefact is more important than the object itself. Further, Huysmans extends space beyond the visual and acoustic by allocating navigational functions to aromatics and haptic elements, mimicking the crossmodal effects of synesthetic cognition. By presenting artifice as the totally immersive reality of choice, Huysmans pioneers a manual for hyperesthetic experience. For Huysmans, it is cognitive manipulation that gives rise to flights of imagination, and imagination that controls human evolution itself.
New York Ace Gallery Installation, Hiro Yamagata (2001)
Hiro Yamagata creates artworks that are simultaneously high tech and elemental, theoretical and visceral, abstract and immersive. He explores the links between science and art, micro and macro phenomenon, and geography, ecology, technology and cultural memory. Yamagata has particularly explored the inexplicable forces of the sun, and its effects on one's environment for over a decade. By working with artificial, man-made beams generated by lasers and other advanced lighting systems (including fiber optic beams, color rays and Intelbeams), he believes "we can better recognize those elements of the sun which we would not otherwise perceive, or attempt to understand."
The unifying element is the refractive holographic panels covering all surfaces of the gallery walls, floor, and ceiling. These multiple refractive surfaces disperse and transform white laser beams into scattered spectrums of color. In addition, most of the rooms are filled with hundreds of spinning, mirrored cubes suspended from the ceiling. The laser/lighting systems are run by an intricate series of computer programs designed to generate various rays of light, which travel across and between various galleries, bouncing and refracting off of mirrors and holograms. The viewer is immersed in a vast display of ever-changing lights, unlike any natural phenomenon but perhaps indicative of it. While the lasers emphasize the technological potential of light, commonplace light sources, such as mirrors or floodlights, represent an anchor to reality, albeit with its constantly changing impressions.
Space is the notion that connects a multiplicity of elements in McLuhan's large and diverse ouevre. McLuhan made constant reference to space throughout his career and the various dimensions of this thought are articulated through notions of spatial biases, sensations and modes of production. It was space furthermore which anchored the systems of ideas that connected McLuhan to artists and theorists with whose work his own is most productively situated. McLuhan in Space by Richard Cavell
While McLuhan's later work experienced luke warm reception, his reappraisal in recent times shows his views on media and communications have lost none of its punch. McLuhan's 1969 Playboy interview offers his ideas up in a most lucid fashion. In true maverick style, McLuhan rarely 'positioned' or 'framed' his views - his perspective was always in a state of flux. As McLuhan realized, there can no points of view in a society where media promotes their own hyperesthetic models of lifestyle experience.
Cyberhelvetia Pavillion (2002) by 3Deluxe
The Cyberhelvetia Pavillion by 3Deluxe was part of the “Arteplage Biel” during the Swiss Expo of 2002. A big pool made of glass was illuminated with a water animation whose parameters were depending on the real weather-situation outside, resulting in rougher or calmer water simulations. Pool-side aquaphones featured 3 interfaces to an interactive sound-pool where visitors exchanged sound-messages in digital water bubbles. Using the aquaphones (a combination of a 3d-tracker used as cursor, a speaker and a microphone) people created bubbles by speaking into the microphone which were then shared among 2 projections facing each other on the sides of the pool.
'Don't think disappearance of reality in representation; think disappearance of the self! In postmodernity it seems that simulation has become the existential ground of personality itself.' David Howes
Hyperesthesia, or The Sensual Logic of Late Capitalism explores ideas from The Experience Economy (1999) by Pine & Gilmore and Emotional Design (2004) by Don Norman and posits an interesting question - with the commercially motivated hyperestheticization of everyday products, how long will it be before every aspect of sensation is brought under the scrutiny of intellectual property rights? A scarry thought. The hyperesthetic of McLuhan's acoustic space has indeeed come home to roost...
