Artmix Cultural Association with the support of Romanian Cultural Institute presents the interactive installation Hybrid Sensorium by Saint Machine at the international exhibition Recto VRso - Art & VR Gallery, organized by LAVAL VIRTUAL, on Châteauneuf esplanade, April 3rd to 8th 2018, Laval, France.
Recto VRso proposes the theme Real Matter| Virtual Matter, under the artistic direction of the French artist and researcher Judith Guez, presenting a selection of artworks that use virtual and mixed reality as artistic medium. For the 20th edition, Laval Virtual offers an outlook on new media art andputs a real spotlight on known and emerging artists whose artworks in virtual reality open new perspectives.
Romanian experimental artist Saint Machine has been selected by an international jury to present at Recto VRso her installation Hybrid Sensorium, also nominated at Laval Virtual Awards, Art&VRcategory. The artwork analyses the way we sense our body within the physical space and the sensory distortions caused both by mediating technology and direct contact.The artwork is placed in an unmediated physical contact with the visitor, thus both of them become vulnerable to an emotional contamination. A fabricated structure is superposed on the natural medium of the body, an artificial, permeable membrane that tries to condition our biological needs. The hybrid organism responds to human breathing rhythm in real time and attempts to adapt it to its needs, offering digital content in exchange for oxygen. It tests human availability to cede physicality to a constructed environment, while monitoring and archiving the user behaviour. For the production of the installation the artist collaborated with Sergiu Negulici (animation), Mitoș Micleușanu (sound design), Răzvan Vasilache, Sorin Olexiuc, Alexandru Vartic (programming), Radu Mititelu (electronics) and Răzvan Stoica (production).
«Hybrid Sensorium is intriguing, original and it seems to offer a non-VR technological approach to a very mixed reality experience. It is in the moving away from the hard-tech electronic aesthetic to a more organic, maybe even alien form, that this piece gives a refreshing perspective to the theme of the Recto VRso 2018: Matière Réelle| Matière Virtuelle.” (Recto VRso jury review)
“By interrupting the breathing rhythm I wanted to trigger the perception of space as lived interval, suspended reality caused by a syncope of objective reality. I developed the idea of innerform / space within, as primary state, initial intention that imprints the entire history of a process. It treats form as inexistent in itself, as transient phase of a process, referring to space not as static, but as progression, dynamic content, lived space and time, originating in the interval, syncope, void.” (Saint Machine)
This year, Recto VRso selection was made by an international jury composed of Agnès Alfandari (Digital Departament Director, French Institute, France), Louise Boisclair (PhD, Researcher, art critic and essayist, Canada), Line Brucena (Co-Founder Gengiskan Production, France), Alvaro Cassinelli (Researcher, inventor and media artist, Uruguay), Philippe Franck (Director-Founder Transcultures, art historian, art critic, Belgium), Philippe Fuchs (Professor and coordinator of research team Réalité Virtuelle & Réalité Augmentée, Centre de Robotique des MINES Paris Tech, France), Antoine Huon (psychologist, UK), Valentina Peri (Co-Director and curator, Galerie Charlot, France), Jayesh Pillai (artist, designer, researcher, India), Natacha Seigholles (Founder, Décalab), Jean-Luc Soret (Curator and coordinator of new media projects,Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, France), Yann Toullec(Co-Founder – GIE de la VR Connection,France), Joris Weijdom (Researcher Réalité Mixte, Founder of Média and Performance Lab (MAPLAB – 2012 / 2015, Associate Lector at HKU University of the Arts, Holland), François Zajéga (artist, Belgium). See full selection of Recto VRso here: https://www.laval-virtual.org/en/challenge/event/recto-vrso-in
Hybrid Sensoriumwas first presented as a work in progress in 2017 atPOINT ZERO—Human.0, Machine.0, Data.0 |Ars Electronica - AI The Other I.In 2018, the artwork will be itinerated to May to Baia Mare (Street Delivery, Carolina Creative Quartier) and Athens Digital Arts Festival 2018(Singularity Now), and in September to Tel Aviv Museum of Art, part of the event Art & Science at Tel Aviv Museum.
Since 1999, Laval Virtual is one of the most important events in Europe showcasing innovations and new technologies. Virtual and augmented reality is the core of the show. With more than 150 exhibitors and 40 countries represented, a continuous increase of the number of visitors (17 700 in 2017) and a constant diversification of the business sectors (Industries, Heritage, Health, Formation, Marketing, Culture, etc.), it became a not-to-be-missed event for the VR/AR world. For the 20th edition, Laval Virtual chose to support the artistic effervescence of the virtual and mixed reality field by highlighting the inherent connections between art and digital innovation.
In 2018, Recto VRso - Art & VR Gallery is supported by Fondation Mécène Mayenne, Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée and French Cultural Institute.
Saint Machine is the pseudonym of a Romanian experimentalist artist interested in the conceptual aspects of perception. She is the author of immersive and responsive installations that investigate biological processes and study the notion of space as living structure in its dichotomous aspects: public | private, interior | exterior, real | virtual, physical | imaginary, hidden | revealed. Saint Machine installations are cavernous physical sculptures that carry a digital core and use the human body to function.Among her projects we mention Hybrid Sensorium|POINT ZERO—Human.0, Machine.0, Data.0 |Ars Electronica 2017, AI The Other I, Feed Me|Ars Electronica 2017, The Habitats of the Future, or NOW, participative installation, Open Lab, Bucharest ECoC Candidacy,ARCUB, 2016.
Hybrid Sensoriumis a project produced by ARTMIX Cultural Association, an organization with more than 10 year experience in cultural projects such as Feed Me, Ars Electronica Festival (Linz, 2015), Urban Art, Architectural Projections Festival (Bucharest, 2007, 2008, 2009), Who’s Afraid of Glass, by Ioan Nemțoi, Museum Quartier (Wien, 2007), Artmix Contemporary Art Archive,public space,Bucharest National Theatre (Bucharest, 2006),1200°C, Cărturești Bookstore, Nemtoi Gallery & Bucharest public space (Bucharest, 2005).
For more information: asociatiaartmix@gmail.com, +40728 858 588/ Marilena Oprescu Singer, +40723 514 363/ Roxana Bedrule, PhD Cultural Studies (ARTMIX) or jguez@laval-virtual.org,+3360858800 / Judith Guez, PhD VR Artist and Researcher (Art & VR Gallery, LAVAL VIRTUAL).
