Skate 1.0 is a conceptual sound and light installation by Electroland. Space, movement, context and virtual locations are the key words for this interesting installation. Skate 1.0 puts the viewer into an abstract virtual skateboard park. Skater sounds travel above, below, around and through the viewers and serve as a kind of portal for them. The sounds are a recognisable and approachable door for the audience, a door through which they can travel into the abstract conceptual layers of this work. The light links to both sides. It registers the virtual movement of the skaters and at the same time pushes the viewer beyond.
“The Seven Seals” is a work by Chinese contemporary artist Tsang Kin-Wah. It is a fascinating ongoing series of seven conceptual digital video art installations using texts and computer technology to show Tsang’s thoughts on various issues of the day. “The Seven Seals” draws its reference from various sources such as: existentialism, metaphysics and politics. With this work Tsang Kin-wah attempt to articulate the complex situation of the world and the dilemmas that people are facing while approaching “the end of the world”.
Animated phrases and short sentences appear, move and float, sometimes, like a murmur and sometimes like an admonition that reveals the nature of human beings and the changes of our emotions. Without a clear beginning or end, each installation in the “The Seven Seals” creates different cycles of text on continuous loops that appear to repeat without end; echoing the concept of “eternal recurrence” whereby all the issues and dilemmas of daily existence are seen perpetually recurring for an infinite number of fleeting instances, even though we recognize and are aware of them for a longer time.
Photos and videos from the The Fifth Seal installation which is part of the Seven Seals project.
Videos and Photos by: Tsang Kin-wah | Tsang Kin-wah website | Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Colors of Shadow is the first conceptual photo series which artist Hiroshi Sugimoto photographed in color and it shows his continuous interrogation of photography’s intrinsic nature; of light entering into a darkened or “dimmed chamber”, however, the light source remains out of view. The work is minimalist in nature. The photographic field is emptied of any superfluous detail, allowing stillness for meditation. Colors of Shadow seems also to mirror the white cube, the gallery space, in its perpetual rhythm to lay bare its white walls to receive the work of art. Here the works reflect its surroundings; the detail is focused on what the viewer’s eye does not generally pay attention to. Brought into focus are the corners of the space, its ceiling and walls with different hues of whites due to the slightest alteration in lighting, and their cast shadows.
Subtle play of light and shadow as well as spatial composition are central in this work by artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. He explains it as following:
”I’ve learned many things from using my hands. While I’m still not sure about the nature of light—whether it’s waves or particles—I’ve learned something about shadows. Trying to devise a way of observing shadows, this project escalated into a major undertaking, requiring an entire hilltop penthouse in a Tokyo apartment. When surfaces receive light, the light effects vary according to the angle of exposure. Selecting three distinct angles—90°, 55°, and 35°—I had the walls surfaced using traditional Japanese shikkui (plaster finishing), which absorbs and reflects light most evenly. In the morning light, the shadows play freely over the surfaces, now appearing, now vanishing. On rainy days, they take on a deeper, more evocative cast. I’ve only just begun my observations, but already I’ve discovered a sublime variety in shadow hues.”
Photos from top to bottom: Colors of shadow c1020 Colors of shadow c1031 Colors of shadow c1028 Colors of shadow c1023 Colors of shadow c1019
Dutch Wife is an experimental animated short film by London based graphic and motion designer Jesse Kanda. In this video he experimented with filmed footage of plant remains which floated around in a canal and a combination of various 3D models. The result is a fascinating experiment about distortion, liquid, transformation and the virtual human body.
Video: directed, animated and sountracked by Jesse Kanda | Photos by Jesse Kanda | Jesse Kanda website
Body Pressure is an art piece by Bruce Nauman from 1974 which basically is a mix between conceptual text art and performance art. The work invites the spectator to become the performer. The physical form of the work is a simple poster which serves more as an igniter as it gives the performers a set of typed out instructions for merging their bodies with an architectural surface. Body Pressure is, aside from the physical experience, also a mental journey which challenges the performers to think about the physical aspects and limitations of their own bodies and travel beyond these limitations in their minds.
Below follows the text of the poster:
Body Pressure
Press as much of the front surface of your body (palms in or out, left or right cheek) against the wall as possible.
Press very hard and concentrate.
Form an image of yourself (suppose you had just stepped forward) on the opposite side of the wall pressing back against the wall very hard.
Press very hard and concentrate on the image pressing very hard.
(the image of pressing very hard) press your front surface and back surface toward each other and begin to ignore or block the thickness of the wall. (remove the wall)
Think how various parts of your body press against the wall; which parts touch and which do not.
Consider the parts of your back which press against the wall; press hard and feel how the front and back of your body press together.
Concentrate on the tension in the muscles, pain where bones meet, fleshy deformations that occur under pressure; consider body hair, perspiration, odors (smells).
This may become a very erotic exercise.
Bruce Nauman, Body Pressure, 1974, (c) 2002 Bruce Nauman /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Work by Bruce Nauman | Photos by Bruce Nauman, top: Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, centre: Jacob Birken
