Where technology meets art: a revolution in the art world
This discussion was enriched by presentations by the gallery’s Clare Gannaway, who talked about the new work by Choe U-ram, Urbanus Female and Urbanus Male, Lewis Sykes from The Sancho Plan, and Owl Project’s Tony Hall and Simon Blackmore.
Clare Gannaway described her meeting with Choe U-ram in Korea where the urban landscape and the advanced use of technology there seemed to have made an impact on his work.
Clare went on to explain how Choe U-ram makes sketches of his robotic animal-like creations and weaves a narrative around each piece, giving them names and detailing their behaviours and habitats, touching on ideas of scientific classification. Urbanus Male, translated as “lover of the urban”, is said to live on urban energy and is responsive to the Urbanus Female. Someone said they thought that the sculptures were plant-like because they were tethered down, but someone else suggested that they were more like fish in that seem to float.
Clare suggested that U-ram’s work looks at the boundaries between art, technology and science in a way that sees them co-exist rather than one being a substitute for another. Someone suggested that this work could be seen as an example of where technology and art meet.
The sculptures were described as a celebration of nature as much as technology. It was noted that although technologically they were very sophisticated, it was nothing compared to what nature can already do.
Tony Hall and Simon Blackmore talked about their work before going on to introduce Owl Project. Tony talked about how he is interested in science but, when pressed, said that he prefers not to address the issue of whether he is a scientist or an artist because he doesn’t see it as a matter of concern to him. His work includes creating a vortex in a coffee cup and creating a method to communicate with electric fish. Tony said he sees his work as an interface between what you would see and what you can see. Simon showed some landscape photos of places around Britain, already romanticised by painters such as Turner and Constable, featuring his caravan. He has also produced sound work including a guitar modified to be played by data from a weather station, a recreation of what it might sound like if you were to cut perpendicular across a CD, and an interactive raft connected to an internet map. Simon said he liked the idea of finding a way to manage and understand the uncontrollable outside world.
Owl Project is a joint venture by Tony and Simon which began with the creation of a laptop in a log used in musical performances as a reaction to the complex technical equipment usually used. The Log1k and the iLog (a smaller more portable design) have been used regularly in live performances and have had popular interest through their presence on the internet.
Someone raised the idea that many of the artists in the recent Venice Biennale used technology in their work, but not everyone directly addressed their use of technology. It was also suggested, at this point, that the use of technology in art can sometimes prove a barrier for what is going on behind it and in how concepts and ideas can be communicated.
Lewis Sykes then introduced two projects that he is involved with, Cybersalon which looks at the social, cultural and political impacts of technology in our lives, and The Sancho Plan which created audio-visual work using technology to directly link percussion and animation. Lewis talked about how the way The Sancho Plan makes their work brings the whole thing back to a more natural performance and that it is important that technology doesn’t get in the way of what they are attempting to do. What The Sancho Plan does to technology is to play with it in a way that can push it further than its makers intended it to go and therefore create new possibilities. Lewis said he saw art as a line of enquiry much in the same way as science. He mentioned that, to date, technology has been seen in art as a series of fashionable blips, with net art now seen as historical phenomenon of the 1990s.
In the wider discussion someone asked, “who is the label ‘art’ or ‘science’ for?” and it was agreed that funding for projects often has a part to play in this, and that initiatives which bring scientists and artists together have the effect of maintaining these categories. KD
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