Around the Corner is a locative artwork that creates an experience based upon users’ locations and spatial practices. The boundary between the urban space and telematic space become indistinct. Spaces, or cities are no longer defined by infrastructure, instead, they are defined by thought-processes, actions and practices. Users explore the artwork through simple interaction and unfold the layered narrative, which describes an everyday life situation.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/around-the-corner/id432844758?mt=8

This project is support by DXARTS, University of Washington, Seattle, US

Special thanks to Joyce Lee, Queenie Wong and Carly Amanda St John

iMomentFB is an experiment which links users’ emotions and locations together. Users can share their locative
emotions with friends.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imomentfb/id414887267?mt=8

Muybridge Moment (MuMo) is a object-based network that was inspired by early animation and film technology developed from the 19th century. The title is dedicated to Eadweard Muybridge who is one of pioneers of early animation technologies. The sequential images remind us how animation or film has been constructed based on our visual perception of moving objects. The phenomenon coincides with the idea of how our memories work; the way we connect bits and pieces in our minds. The association built upon how we memorize our own stories between gaps.

The artwork structure resembles a celestial coordinate-like system; all the devices are the same and each video on each device is similar to another. Audience enrich the artwork through their interactions and exploration of the connections among devices.

Exhibitions
Ogaki Biennale 2010, Ogaki, Japan (September, 2010)
Gallery, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science, Gifu, Japan (November, 2010)

The Wearable Devices
MuMo consists an array of wearable art devices, structured around the manifestation of 2D animations in physical space. Each individual device equips with a microcontroller, wiresless transceiver, a tiny OLED display and a SD memory card. The devices communicate with each other at a close distance. The speed of their animations gradually synchronize and eventually run at the same speed. A SD memory card stores 200-300 frames of video, which has been shot before around Ogaki. A customized program runs in the microcontroller retrieves the images and show them on the OLED display. The frequency of each image retrieval depends on the distance between each device. The customized program transfers data to each of the devices through a ZigBee® wireless transmitter. The signal strength of received data indicates the approximate distance between the sender and receiver.

The Performance
There are 2 performances in this project. The first one is performed by Yusuke Kimura while the second one is performed by Yusuke Kimura and Hiromi Yoneda. The first performance was video shot at different wells around Ogaki. There are a lot of wells in the city, the concept of water as a pathway and wells as nodes connect to the main theme ?network?.

All 4 videos are in a loop structure; the first frame of the video is the same as its last frame. Performer Yusuke Kimura came out from the well and looked around slowly. He went back to the well at the end. 4 videos are all connected in both form and content. In the second performance, the content is similar to the first one, except there were 2 performers and it was a live performance. Its structure was developed based on the first one, in addition, the distance between performers became the key concept. Audience were invited to wear the device and interact with the device after each performance. The live performance has been performed 3 times at Ogaki Biennale 2010; 22-23, 25, September 2010.

The Exhibition Setup
Apart from the performance, the devices has been exhibited in form of a video installation.
The installation showed the audience activities during the residency at IAMAS and the project description. The audience were also invited to wear and try the devices. Meanwhile, 2 videos has been exhibited. The first video showed the information and performance rehearsal of the project. While for the second one, it showed the scenery of the city Ogaki in relation to the theme of water. A custom-made frame for video projection has been fabricated. Instead of tradition rectangular video projection, it created a more visually interesting video projection and fits for the project identity.

Support & Crew
This project is supported by Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, Japan

Performers
Yusuke Kimura and Hiromi Yoneda

Project Assistant
Chiaki Konno

Fabrication Assistants
Goh Sung Hoon and Sho Minase

Documentation
Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, Japan

Special Thanks to President Sekiguchi-san, Professor Kobayashi-san, Takanori Endo, Kyo Akabane, Yosuke Kawamura, Collin Stecker & Staff in IAMAS and RCIC

Where’s the Chicken? is a locative robotics public artwork, which supported by Hong Kong Arts Development Council. It embodies public interaction, collaborative narrative, automata system and mobile technology. The artwork constructs a narrative performance which cooperates among the robot, cultural specific locations and the public participation. The chicken robot is a life form mechanical automata, which reframes its own definition and its general perception. In “Where’s the Chicken?”, a “better” kind of chicken, a chicken robot which does not spread any diseases, a role model of “well-behaved chicken”, has been shown publicly. It re/ frames the question of how we extend the medium and ourselves, history and culture, meanwhile, share the same time-space with us and highly cultural/ location specific.

Conceptual Overview

The artwork itself is not simply a simulation of the reality, it should be originates from our everyday perception of reality and through an aesthetic system, the perception will be twisted, altered and transformed. Audience contribute actively to the construction of the artwork through their interactivity and creativity with the new scenarios, structures and interfaces.

The narrative hybridizes, enriches and continues with their chosen locations, their “performances” and their stories. They may take pictures with the robot, upload the pictures when they return it to the artist, or tell the artist what they have done with the chicken, hence construct a collaborative “chicken map of the city”.

Award and Exhibition

Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR China (July 2009)
Finalist Award, Asia Digital Art Awards 2009, Fukuoka, Japan (Feb 2010)

Chicken Map

The autonomous chicken robot appears at different cultural specific locations around the city, public participate in the project by sending short message service (SMSs) and bring it for outing, hence interact and perform with it. The poetics built upon the public interactions or participations or performances in different cultural specific locations, hence creates the topology of narrative and the chicken map of the city.

The locations of the chicken robot, updated by the artist from time to time and a graphical representation, “chicken map of the city” has been constructed. The public participate in this project by sending short message service (SMS) to a designated mobile phone number, either in form of locations’ names or other messages. Their messages has been algorithmic processed by server-side custom-made software. Their messages compose the chicken map of the city, together with the artist.

Chicken Robots

4 extra-large, custom-made, surreal robot chickens has been constructed for this project. The artist creates locative performances with it in different cultural specific locations around the city during the exhibition period.

Locative Performances

The artist created 18 performances in 18 districts in Hong Kong together with the chicken robot. There are total 18 districts in Hong Kong and the artist chose a cultural specific location in each district in association with the icon “chicken”. In each of the cultural specific location, apart from showing the chicken robot to the public, the artist tracked herself by a location tracking software installed in her mobile phone and created performances.

Feature Article at Park Magazine Vol.2, an art magazine based in Porto, Portugal

Catalogue

Full printed catalogs with DVD are available on request

Support & Crew

This Project is supported by Hong Kong Arts Development Council and funding made possible through collaboration with the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University

Special thanks to Center For Digital Arts & Experimental Media (DXARTS), University of Washington, Seattle, US

Documentation by

Yan Chung, Lily Kwok, Lee Ly Ting, Abby Wong

Contact

annie at wheresthechicken.org

Annie Wan (Ph.D., Center For Digital Arts & Experimental Media (DXARTS), University of Washington, Seattle US) is an international contemporary artist, often creates artworks concern with a notion of what is the “intra-relationship” between spaces and sites, materials and immaterial, inter-relationship between the site and the context. Her works have been exhibited at festivals in Europe, Asia and North America, including Art+Communication Festival 2004 (Riga, Latvia), Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Conference 2004 (Singapore), ZeroOne/ ISEA 2006 (San Jose, US) and French Pavilion in 10th Venice Architecture Biennale (Venice, Italy). In 2010, She works as an Artist-in-Resident at Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science (IAMAS), Japan.

Wan received travel and project grants from various organizations in the US, Hong Kong, Sweden, and Norway. She is also the recipient of winning award (Performance Category) in Asiagraph 2008, Shanghai, China and the Finalist prize in Asia Digital Art Awards 2009, Fukuoka, Japan.

Wan’s phd dissertation “Modularity and Space Juxtaposition: Beyond Site-specificity in Art” explores the notion of constructing, presenting and perceiving an artwork through its nomadic qualities and the connections between different sites and site/ context. It is structured around research into the discourses of site-specific art, the cultural specificity and spatial practices in an artwork; analysis of locative arts (specifically the unstable relationship between spatialized narrative and its structure); the temporal shift in location via a mobile, yet physical entity, and the significance of this modular structure in an artwork.

Email: annie at wheresthechicken.org

2012 Ph.D., Center For Digital Arts & Experiment Media (DXARTS), University of Washington, Seattle, US

2008 Phd Candidate, Center For Digital Arts & Experiment Media (DXARTS), University of Washington, Seattle, US

2005 MSc in Art and Technology, Innovative Design, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

2002 Bachelor of Arts in Creative Media, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

Selected Exhibitions, Performances and Academic Conferences

2010
OGAKI, JAPAN
Muybridge Moment (MuMo), Video Documentation, Gallery, IAMAS, Japan
Muybridge Moment (MuMo), Interactive Performance, Ogaki Bienalle 2010, Japan

2009
HONG KONG SAR, CHINA
Where’s the Chicken?, Locative Performance, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
VENICE, ITALY
Where’s the Chicken?, Paper Presentation, International Conference on The Arts in Society, Venice, Italy http://2009.artsinsociety.com/sessions/index.html

2008
HONG KONG SAR, CHINA
Objet Petit A, Robotics Installation, October Contemporary, Videotage

2006
SEATTLE, WA, US
Tre Marie (Collaborative Project), RF-ID dance performance, Meany Hall for the Performing Arts
SANTA BARBARA, CA, US
Tre Marie (Collaborative Project), RF-ID dance performance, ACM Multimedia Conference
VENICE, ITALY
Haunted@MetaVilla, Telematics Installation, Invited Artist, 10th Venice Architecture Biennale
SAN JOSE, CA, US
Phenakistoscape, Robotics Installation, Invited Artist, ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Arts)

2005
SEATTLE, WA, US
Tre Marie (Collaborative Project), RF-ID dance performance, Meany Hall for the Performing Arts
ONLINE
Co-curator (Collaborative Project), Locative Media Gallery, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA)
VISBY, SWEDEN
Audiovisual Performance, Shortcuts Film Festival, Baltic Art Center

2004
BERGEN, NORWAY
Audiovisual Performance, Piksel Festival, FLOSS in Motion
SINGAPORE
Paper presentation, Multimedia Asia Pacific Conference 2004 (MAAP)
RIGA, LATVIA
GeoLeds, Telematics Installation, ART+COMMUNICATION Festival 2004
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND
Iceland Inside Out, Trans-Cultural Mapping Workshop
BERLIN, GERMANY
Paper presentation, Oppositional Architecture Conference
STRASBOURG, FRANCE
Open Source City, Open Source City Festival
OSLO, NORWAY
Mot Mars, Interactive Performance, Atelier Nord
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN
Audiovisual Performance, Siren Electronic Music Festival 2004, Pustervik Theater

2003
MOLNDAL, SWEDEN
Mobile Turing (Collaborative Project), Locative Game Installation, Molndal Museum
HONG KONG SAR, CHINA
Motion Graphics in Motion (Collaborative Project), Happenings Installation, Hong Kong Arts Center
Audiovisual Performance, Sound and Vision Festival 2003

Selected Publications

2011
Featured Artist, Park Magazine Issue #2, http://www.parkmagazine.org/

2009
The Relationship Between Technical Experiments and Media Arts in Education (Written in Chinese), a.m.post June issue 2009

2008
Artist in Motion, Glow in the Dark – Spotting media. art. noise. in Hong Kong

2006
Locative Media, on and off the beaten track, co-author, Leonardo Electronic Almance (online curatorial statement)
Phenakistoscape, Leonardo, August 2006, Vol. 39, No. 4, p. 295-296
Tre Marie, co-author, Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM international conference on Multimedia, p. 1037-1038

SELECTED PUBLIC LECTURES, FORUMS AND TALKS

2011
Hong Kong Arts School, Hong Kong (Speaker)

2010
Project Presentation, Institute of Advanced Media Arts & Science (IAMAS), Japan

2009
The Paradigm of a Creative Arts Hub in Hong Kong, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University (Moderator)
Relational Aesthetics of Arts and Design in Hong Kong, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University (Moderator)
Public Art, Performance and Intervention in Public Spaces, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University (Moderator)
Documentation of Experiences in Media Arts, Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong (Moderator)
History of Digital Arts & its Artistic Paradigm, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University (Lecturer)
History of Mechatronic Arts & its Cultural Implication, Ho Sin Hang Campus, Hong Kong Baptist University (Lecturer)
Interconnectedness between Public & Aesthetics in Media Arts, Videotage, Hong Kong (Lecturer)

2007
911 Media Center, Seattle, U.S (Speaker)

2006
The China Electronic Music Center, Central Conservation of Music, Beijing, China (Speaker)

2005
Hong Kong Arts School, Hong Kong (Lecturer)
School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Lecturer)
Roundtable Discussion, Videotage Hong Kong (Moderator)

Objet Petit A is a robotics performance, a robot with big lips looks for hes (his/ her) desirable human, hes responses to different audience in different emotional behaviors. When hes sees heself, hes hesitates and starts to look for hes desirable human again.

This project is the iteration of my General Examination for DXARTS, University of Washington and has been exhibited for 1 month in Videotage, October Contemporary 2008, Hong Kong.

Tre Marie is an interactive audio-visual dance improvised performance. The system in progress is an innovation of RF-ID (radio-frequency identification) technology for dance performance, which improvise live visuals on stage. The performance is a reconstructed architecture of spaces, encodes the spatial aesthetics of the interaction between human, theatrical space and cinematic space.

A RF-ID reader device and tags are attached to dancers on stage and when RF-ID reader detects the tags by the actions the dancers take on stage. The RF-ID tags are being placed around the stage as well as dancers’ bodies. The movement of the dancers, as well as the locomotion on stage are being carefully mapped into the parameters of the live generated virtual sculpture. The identification data contained inside the RF-ID tags will be forwarded to the system that control the parameters of live visuals by means of bluetooth wireless technology, which contains a lively helix sculpture, generated by OpenGL.

In collaboration with Hiroki Nishino from DXARTS & Pamela Pietro, Department of Dance, University of Washington.

Tre Marie premiered at DXARTS concert and has been performed in ACM Conference 2006, UCSB, Santa Barbara.

Haunted is a “site-specific”, telematic audiovisual installation within the French Pavilion, ResidentMeta (formerly named as MetaVilla), 10th Venice Architecture Biennale (http://www.exyzt.net/tiki-index.php?page=ResidentMeta). The project is commissioned by EXYZT, a French architecture group and its main theme refers to the video game, Resident Evil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_(video_game)).

The installation Haunted, has been formed around the different interpretations of the word itself. The idea of virtual presence is an obsession for “being nowhere”, a question of believing in the “spacelessness”, “virtual friends” and even ourselves. In many cultures, people believe in ghosts and spirits, it collides the idea of believing and questions of existence. The poetics built upon the irony. The “spacelessness” virtual presence creates the architecture of the installation, i.e the multiple heads video projections and the acoustics of multichannels audio, it challenges where is the site of project, in other words, where is the architecture. Is the project virtual or physical, does the project itself exist, if yes, where is it? Wvirtual friends) or the computer itself.

The installation will be situated at the French Pavilion physically and a MSN (an instant messaging service developed by Microsoft between 1999-2006, widely known as .NET messagers) account represents its virtual presence. Once the messager account, named as haunted_residentmeta, is online, it will automatically update to its friend list and if someone sends it a message, it will automatically send the sender back a message composed of similar words via algorithmic process.

The message string will be routed, sonified and processed within realtime processing and text-to-speech algorithm. The sound will be presented as a 8-channels sound installation in corporate with the acoustics inside the pavilion. Apart from above processes, its MSN friend list account name and its received message will be visualized via an immersive multiple-heads supported video projection. The physical installation will be lively recorded and transferred to the world wide web via webcam.

Haunted@MetaVilla

“The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope) was an early animation device, the predecessor to the zoetrope. It was invented in 1831 simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer.

One variant of the phenakistoscope was a spinning disc mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc was drawn a series of pictures corresponding to frames of the animation; around its circumference was a series of radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc’s reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images with the appearance of a motion picture.

Another variant had two discs, one with slits and one with pictures; this was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror. Unlike the zoetrope and its successors, the phenakistoscope could only practically be used by one person at a time.

The word “phenakistoscope” comes from Greek roots meaning “deceiving viewer”.”

Except from Wikipedia.org

Phenakistoscape is a kinetic interface experiments are contextualized within the larger context of an investigation into the metaphysics of moving image projection and an exploration to the language of “Mobile Projection” with particular emphasis upon on their distinctive temporal, spatial modalities.

A mechanical algorithmic approach to the video projection is introduced as “Language of Mobile Screen”. New methods for extending the practice of moving image space with physical space are presented as a means of dynamic and unexpected labyrinth as a reconstructed architecture of time and space. It endows with an entirely distinct scheme for unfolding the profound poetry encoded in cinematic space, hence to create an exceptional perception of moving images.