Month: February 1995

DATE – 1995
DISCIPLINE – Art
MEDIUM – Interactive robotic installation
STATUS – Displayed at the Net@works exhibition, National Centre of the Arts Mexico City
WEBLINKS
http://www.brookemediaarts.ca/exhibition/networks/gallery/smith.html
http://www.brookemediaarts.ca/exhibition/networks/gallery/curatorial.html#smith

In the 1994 cultural exchange between Canada and Mexico, the exhibition “Los Colores de la Voluntad”, a meeting of the minds of new media and computer artists initiated the concept of an exchange exhibition from Toronto to Mexico City of Computer Art, New Media and Technology. In the following documents and visual support material you will see how this idea has unfolded into a powerful display of work from Toronto, interconnecting it with an international multi-media exhibition from one of Torontos major institutions.
Selected works from TechnoArt, curated by Faye Greaves, of the Ontario Science Centre and Derrick de Kerckhove of the McLuhan Program, along with a collective of Canadian artists from Toronto curated by Steev Morgan, “Net@Works”, create the next cultural exchange art exhibition that travels to Mexico from Canada. Included in the program is a lecture series comprised of 6 artists from TechnoArt and “Net@Works”. They will travel to Mexico to install their work and give lectures and slide presentations about their research and process and Canadian Computer Art, New Media and Technology.

We have been invited to exhibit this work at Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City. This is a new institution that opened in November of 1994. It houses all of the schools of art in Mexico City, as well as extended courses in all media; and galleries to exhibit the work of national and international artists. We are working with NAFAA-Mexico, and Director Jorge Morales, and sponsored by the Centro MultiMedia at the CNA and Coordinator Andrea di Castro. Jorge was the curator and coordinator of the Mexican art exhibition, “Los Colores de la Voluntad”, and Andrea is a multimedia artist who came to Toronto as an artist and lecturer with Los Colores.

This exhibition is a direct outcome of “Los Colores de la Voluntad”, and an example of how these exchanges can create an ongoing relationship between our two countries and cultures. These events are crossroads, and facilitate new ideas and opportunities for people, artists and institutions of both countries.

This project is the continuation of a series of cultural exchanges between Canada and Mexico sponsored by NAFAA. It is through this kind of artistic interaction and Inter-access’ that our two worlds can bridge the gaps between their differences and build a solid base on which we can begin to grow into the future together.
Director – Eleni Mokas

DATE – 1995
DISCIPLINE – Art
MEDIUM
STATUS

This exhibition was exhibited at ISEA in Montreal via a videoconference link Interaccess in Toronto and was linked via ISDN based videoconferencing to numerous sites around the world and allowed the audience to control the robots direction remotely. The Electric Skin exhibition was funded through a Media Arts grant from the Canada Council of the Arts.

ARTISTS
Doug Back, Francis LeBouthillier, Johanna Householder, Simone Jones, Steev Morgan, Jeff Mann, Catherine Orfald, Nancy Nancy Paterson, Kathleen Richardson, Victoria Scott, Graham Smith, Karen Tzventarny, Norman White

DATE – 1988
DISCIPLINE – Art
MEDIUM – Interactive kinetic sculpture
STATUS – Display at Interaccess in Toronto, Canada
WEBLINKS
http://www.xraylab.org/References/NOW%20On%20-%20Entertainment%20-%20Feature.html

Local artists tackle robotic challenge

NOW MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 1997

By DEIRDRE HANNA
Just imagine something that is not only beautiful but does something meaningful — because it knows how to.
The concept of an intelligent sculpture is singularly compelling, so much so that few art forms carry a sexier cachet than robotics. Yet robotic art, sadly, is still very much in its infancy.
Anyone who wants a taste of where it might be going can get a major hit this weekend with the Spaceprobe exhibit of electro-physical art and the seventh annual Sumo Robot Challenge, which pits mechanized creations against each other in gladiatorial combat.
Fortuitous links
Spaceprobe is the second show the Toronto-based Art and Robotics Group (ARG) has put on at Inter/Access in the past six months, while the Sumo Robot Challenge has become a highlight on OCAD’s academic calendar.
Despite the fortuitous timing overlap, the links between the two events are mostly coincidental. According to artist, teacher and Sumo Robot Challenge coordinator Norman White, about three-quarters of ARG’s members have passed through various programs at the college.
ARG director Jeff Mann is adamant that his group’s creations have little to do with OCAD’s electronic sumo wrestlers.
“There seems to be a culture around robots,” Mann says from the midst of the Spaceprobe installation. “Autonomous carts that zoom around or the toys that little kids play with tend to be the first things that come to people’s minds.
“That’s fine, but this is something else. I founded ARG to bring together people who want to explore electronics in three-dimensional spaces.
“To some extent, this work is interactive in that there’s control and feedback, but what this show is really about is process. This is the kind of work that doesn’t go anywhere until you see what actually happens when you try to put it together, and for the past year ARG has met every Tuesday evening for workshops.”
The workshops tend toward the purely practical, with various members outlining tools and techniques they’ve used to make something in particular work. It’s a gritty, hands-on approach that for Mann represents a reversal in the computerized direction most electronically driven art is taking.
“When I was at OCA, everyone in my program was working with motors, and I was trying to get people to write software. Most of what I’ve done since then is in the box, using computers, video and sound, but I find that stuff leaves me cold.
“Dealing with space, not just the virtual, is far more interesting.”
Mann’s own Spaceprobe offering, Spirit Catcher, is elegant and deceptively simple. A transparent plastic sheet billows above a white-housed fan while discrete antennae sense changes in electrical fields made by the movement of the plastic. These fluctuations are reflected in changes in the sound emitted by three tinny speakers.

Punning organ
Other highlights include James Ruxton’s Heavy Breathing, a device that amplifies the viewers’ breath; Rob Cruickshank and Wendy Whaley’s Transmit/Reflect, featuring a vagina-esque booth that uses a laser to transmit images of those who enter to a fur-lined viewer; Graham Smith’s reflective, revolving Rain Sphere; and Paul Davies’ The Quantification Of Humans, a sisal mat that shows the relative position of those standing on it on a tiny neon chart.
Robert Erlich’s No Escape roves around like a Jetsons-era robotic cart while projecting images between Inter/Access and Gallery 1313, in the heart of Parkdale. Robert Bernecky and Brad Harley take a comical turn with their Windows Of Opportunity, an off-key, pun-rich organ made from PVC pipes and rubber flipflops that plays a painful rendering of Mary Had A Little Lamb.
Other pieces are far less rewarding. Mann reveals his acute awareness of Spaceprobe’s unevenness when he quickly notes that this show is completely uncurated. A week after the opening, two participants still haven’t completed their installations. Shortcomings aside, however, Spaceprobe bristles with potential.
And the Sumo Robots are always a blast. As White observes, “It’s an art form that allows for a lot of irony.”

DATE – 1995
DISCIPLINE – Art
MEDIUM – Telepresence robotics
STATUS – Displayed at the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy

A project for Intalian Telecom that linked journalist Piero Desecqalie from los Angels to Rome via the telepressence robot Wilma.