Here are some images from our show "Retroalimentacion" at the Facultad del Artes Gallery, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.
From the Wall Text: "Retroalimentacion is a series of workshops and a sampling of digital art works by artists located in S.E. Asia sponsored by the Facultad de Artes de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, in Mexico. It is hoped that these events, including workshops conducted in Mexico by four artists/designers located in Southeast Asia, will be the beginning of a cross-cultural dialogue about approaches to the digital medium between Latin America and Southeast Asia. The retro in the title recalls a return to a focus on digital art, a medium of expression that first bloomed at the dawn of the Information Age in the late 1990's. Although not as novel as when wide-spread computer and the Internet usage first sprung up in many parts of the world, the digital medium is being energetically explored by a newer generation of artists geographically located in regions of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines who approach the medium with fresh insights, as well as by other creators located in the region with longer histories of international practice.
The theme of the workshops and exhibit is loosely related to the theme of feedback, feedback in games, feedback in audio-visual remixing, and in other interactive works such as hacked Kinect games, as well as through mediated social feedback. The alimentation in this event's title also hints of a desire to feed, to consume, an addiction to mediated reflections and immediate responses to actions. We are easily drawn into expecting continuous feedback, whether provided by human agents, such as comments in socially mediated software like Facebook, or taking the form of artificially programmed audio-visual responses. Feedback satisfies our sense that our actions have consequences, and this addiction is being harnessed for developing commercial design products and games.
But feedback can also be distorted creatively into noise. Audio and visual effects ripple out from electronic sources. Players intuitively follow paths through digital artifacts based on negative and positive responses to their actions. Feedback then becomes both a guide and a lure, noise and art effect."
Participating Artists:
Andreas Siagian [lifepatch.org]
Anne-Marie Schleiner [opensorcery.net]
Brian O'Reilly
Debbie Ding [dreamsyntax.org]
Kenneth Feinstein
Luis Hernandez Galvan [ungravity.org]
Tengal Nolasnem
Vladimir Todorovic
Organizer:
Janitzio Alatriste
Opening Speech
The Director gave a short speech to the crowd outside before everyone burst inside. It was a small gallery with many projections and "interaction zones" so as a result the first half hour of the exhibition was quite chaotic and I mostly only have pictures of people's heads, arms and shadows...
Luis Hernandez Galvan
Luis showed a number of works projected on the far end of the wall and on a temporary wall in the centre of the gallery. One of them was an exact model of the HDB flat they had been living in Singapore.
As it was hard to take good photos of projections in the gallery, you should also visit Luis' website at
http://ungravity.org/ to see more of his work.
Anne-Marie Schleiner
Anne-Marie showed two games, one more abstract video game involving rearranging cut-up bits of music made in different places, and another game about bees that she had worked on during the workshop with input from students.
As it was hard to take good photos of projections in the gallery so for more, do also take a look at more of Anne-Marie's work at
http://www.opensorcery.net/.
Andreas Siagian
Andreas spent days working on building an installation that amplified the sound of water being filtered through a series of boxes with the power of gravity, entirely from local materials found in Toluca. Even the PCBs were printed in Toluca, thanks to Relder's help!
Debbie Ding
Sun Cycle (
see also previous post for more information):
The Singapore River as a Psychogeographical Faultline:
I showed two kinect-based works at the gallery. People seemed to enjoy it, especially the seeming "unpredictability" of the Sun Cycle (that eventually reveals itself to be quite simple).
Other Artists
A cluster of iMacs were in the gallery to show the video works from the other artists. This was one of them.
PS: If anyone else has other photos of the exhibition, please let me know at 04.48am @ gmail and i will add them or link them to this page as well! Thanks!
