With Gene A. Felice II, Kate Spacek, Nathaniel Ober, and Eve Warnock
Front Door Gallery
Free admission
See more at http://ybca.org/transflux
Room for Big Ideas : Transflux
Uncertainty in a Living System -- In the 20th century, the study of quantum mechanics revealed that the act of observing an object changes the behavior of the observed. This observer effect posits that there is a fundamental limit to what one can know about a system, because the act of measuring introduces uncertainty into the actions of the object being measured. In this context, the Transflux exhibition offers an environment and experience that expands upon this notion of interconnectedness and is based on the tight connections between the viewer and the artists’ construct.
Transflux, the multi-media interactive exhibition explores the themes of biomimicry and interconnectedness between inner worlds and outer worlds, between the largest (cosmos) and smallest (microcosms) realms known to humans. From bios, meaning “life,” and mimesis, meaning “to imitate,” biomimicry serves as a powerful tool for inspiring sustainable solutions to modern dilemmas by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and symbiotic strategies. Hybridizing the wisdom of plants, animals, and microbes with findings from disciplines like astrophysics, engineering, sociology, genomics, and cellular biology, the Transflux installations convey “living technologies” all within an ecologically-minded framework.
As a living, breathing organism, Transflux is composed of natural and electro-mechanical systems formed from ancient and contemporary modes of art and technology. Art works featured "Orrery Harp", "Coactive Systems" and "Vessels" serve as variables that perpetually evolve in response to biometric and environmental sensors that translate elements such as human heart rate or local air quality. This contained “micro” experience serves as a springboard to view the exponentially dynamic “macro” outside world through new lenses. Deeper awareness of the connections amongst these scales of time and space can reveal the massive potential impacts we, as humans, have on our world.
From another perspective, though, we have absolutely no control over the largest scale - the macro that is the cosmos. The Orrery Harp acts as the constant in the equation that helps us absorb this fundamental truth; while visitors are able to influence Coactive Systems and Vessels, there is no option to change the Orrery Harp’s sonification of the evolving universe as it is fixed in a time scale beyond human control.
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The Room for Big Ideas series, held in YBCA's free and open project space, engages our audiences through critical inquiry, context, and socially engaged arts. It is where art and ideas intersect and are shared through interaction, experimentation, and engagement. The Room for Big Ideas series hosts multi-media, immersive, and participatory installations/residencies, special visual and performative projects, open dialogue, and exchange.
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Artists bios:
Gene A. Felice II, genefelice.com (Co-Active Systems)
Gene Felice is a recent graduate Digital Arts and New Media MFA program at UCSC. He is starting a new faculty position in Intermedia & New Media at the University of Maine for fall ’14 where he will be launching his Coaction Lab for arts and science collaborations with an ecological focus. He currently divides his research between: Art, Design & Education. This split allows him to develop balance between interactive art, living systems, and the latest available technology for new media. He has a hybrid practice at the intersection of nature and technology, developing symbiotically creative systems as arts/science research.
Kate Spacek is a social artist and Creative Director at LUDIKA, a collective that designs unique collaborative art and game experiences that connect, educate, and inspire action. She combines 15 years in business operations, project management, group facilitation, and event production with passion-based proficiencies in personal development and creativity to do what she loves – collaborate with global change-makers to spark new perspectives and innovate creative solutions. Kate recently spent ten months in Indonesia, where she co-produced the third annual, highly-acclaimed TEDxUbud. Now back in the States, she is reveling in the fertile and innovative world that is the San Francisco Bay Area. Current projects include HERD (a public performance series rooted in an interactive education curricula and community events), and ZERO1 American Arts Incubator (an international creative arts exchange program in partnership with the U.S. State Department). For more info, visit http://whatisludika.com
Nathaniel Ober, nathanielober.com
(Orrery Harp & Co-Active Systems)
Nathaniel Ober is a new media artist whose work crosses disciplines from installation and performance to video and sound. His interdisciplinary works examine concepts of human perception and natural phenomena, sound as vibration, time and space, and the finite versus the infinite. Working with multiple facets of technology, he creates immersive installations that intend to pervade the viewers senses. His current research is focused on astronomy and astrophysics, which deal with techniques of sonification and processes that attempt to expose our innate connection to the universe.
eve Warnock, evewarnock.com (Vessels)
eve Warnock is a multimedia artist who melds ancient techniques of art-making with modern technologies. She directs live performances and films as well as designs costumes and sets. She is the director of Seekago, five experimental films that incorporates tactics of live performance with film techniques and new medias. She is also director of multiple interactive public performance pieces: Speakers, Denizen, and Queen Mae and the Bells, are a few examples. Her current project is HERD, a multi-platform art work researching animal and human herding behaviors. eve has earned an MFA from the Digital Arts and New Media program at the University of California Santa Cruz. she has worked internationally with Wakka Wakka productions, mentored with Ann Hamilton, and designed the artistic elements of Limited Brands Co. marketing designs. Both her performative and sculptural work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, theaters and opera houses, but she prefers the guerilla style of public performances.
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