Saturday, October 30, 2010

David Cross - Pump, 2009

I first encountered an image of this piece in a printed advertisement for the artist's university's art program and was struck by the similarity to my box piece.  Having fallen in love with inflation as a metaphor and as a strategy to activate the viewer when I first saw images of Lee Bul's Hydra II (Monument), 1999, I naturally loved Cross's use.

All images, video and quotes are from his website:



David Cross is an artist, writer and curator based in Wellington, New Zealand
Working across performance, installation, video and photography, Cross has focused on the relationship between pleasure, the grotesque and the phobic.  His small to large-scale performance/installation work has sought to incorporate and extend contemporary thinking in relation to participation, linking performance art with object-based environments.  Often using his own body as a starting point, he employs a range of objects--many of which are inflatable--to draw audiences into potentially unexpected situations and dialogues.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Move: Choreographing You

The exhibition, Move: Choreographing You, opening today (October 13, 2010) at The Hayward Gallery in London, showcases several relational prosthetics.  Artists who have made RPs (or work that lies just outside my definition of a relational prosthetic) include: Franz Erhard Walther, Lygia Clark, Robert Morris and Franz West.

The promotional/viral video below features pieces Number 31 and 48 of Franz Erhard Walther's Werksatz series.


Via

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Krzysztof Wodiczko and Sung Ho Kim (Interrogative Design Group) - Porte-Parole, 1993



Artist statement (and all images) from Interrogative Design Group's website:


The Porte-Parole Mouthpiece is an instrument for strangers, its function is to empower those who are deprived of power.
This object encircles the jaw with a small video monitor and loud speakers placed directly over the wearer’s mouth, showing the lips moving in sync to the prerecorded narrative. It is designed to replace the hesitations and fearful silent of an immigrant’s personal voice with a fully formed version of the immmigrant’s story. It function both as a conduit of ones' voice and image as well as a gag that blocks the mouth and prevents from speaking.
Porte-Parole transforms its user into a virtual subject, literally, a cyborg communicating through a high-tech device rather than your own bodily apparatus for speech. The small size screen drives viewers to come closer to the user face in order to see the image of the moving lips and hear the voice.


Exhibited in 'Xenology: Immigrant Instruments, 1992-1996' ,Galerie LeLong NYC, 1996.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Krzysztof Wodiczko et al. - Dis-Armor, 1999-2000

Dis-Armor Project:Krzysztof WodiczkoAdam WhitonSung Ho Kim, Jurek Stypulkowski, Brooklyn Model Works






From the website of MIT's Interrogative Design Group:
Dis-Armor is the newest in a series of psychocultural prosthetic equipment designed to meet the communicative need of the alienated, traumatized, and silenced residents of today's cities. It connects contemporary research in two fields: wearable communication technology and prosthetics. In doing so, it counters the dichotomy of the present explosion in communication technology and rampant cultural miscommunication. 



Dis-Armor offers an opportunity for indirect, mediated communication by allowing its users to speak through their backs. LCD screens, worn on the back, display live images of the wearer's eyes transmitted from cameras installed in the helmet covering the face. A speaker positioned below the LCD screens amplifies the user's voice. Attached to the helmet is a rearview mirror, alternatively, a rearview video camera, monitor, microphone, and headphone. These permit the user to see the face and hear the words of the spectator/interlocutor standing behind. Wireless video equipment installed in the helmet further allows two users to work in tandem, showing each other the other's eyes and broadcasting to each the other's voice. 
Specifically, Dis-Armor is an instrument designed to focus on the psychological difficulties of Japanese high school students and "school refusers," who live in silence and lack facial expression. It uses the ancient traditions of arms making to conceive of a playful alternative to intimidating face-to-face communication. It is designed for particular individuals among urban youth who have survived overwhelming life events (violence, neglect, and abuse) and who now wish to overcome their false sense of shame, to break their silence, and to communicate their experience in public space.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Theatre Replacement - Box Theatre and BIOBOXES, 2007 - current

Theatre Replacement is a Vancouver-based theatre company that "tends to engage with biographical examinations, relationship to audience and space and explorations of unique and challenging ways of exploring content and staging material."  


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Box Theatre is a collection of six one-person shows for one-person audiences. In each performance, actor and audience share a small box worn on the actor's shoulders. Using a combination of text, tiny props and a little magic, actor and audience engage in the most intimate of performance experiences. Working with Theatre Replacement artistic directors and local artisan Minoru Yamamoto, 6 actor/creators developed their independent stories and boxes. The new works were first performed at the Firehall Arts Centre and then subsequently altered to fit an outdoor festival setting. Box Theatre was commissioned by The Powell Street Festival, and featured the talents of some of Vancouver's most adventurous theatre makers: Adrienne Wong, Spencer Herbert, Kris Nelson, and Camille Gingras.