SIGGRAPH 2011: Tracing Home in The Age of Networked Techniques
Art Show Overview:
Introduction
In recent years, our highly mediated and networked communications environment has further connected us, overcoming physical distances and territorial boundaries. The telematically assisted interplay of physical and virtual within our lived experiences has gradually transformed our engagement with the world, made us less dependent on physical space, and enabled us to reside, simultaneously and discontinuously, in a multitude of deterritorialized, ubiquitous places at the touch of a button, echo of a voice, or nudge of a sensor. Not only has this degree of virtual interconnectivity and hyperconnectivity altered and dematerialized our sense of body, space, and time, but it has also reconfigured our relations with ourselves, with one another, and with the physical and digital environments we inhabit. As we embrace the new dynamics of the 21″ century’s connectivity and existence, we begin to wonder: where – and what – is home?
The juried selection for Tracing Home, the SIGGRAPH 20II Art Gallery, exhibits a diverse range of digital artworks that explore the concept of home in the age of networked technology. Inspired by the new life trajectories in an integrated global community where human relations and perceptions are conceived through various manifestations of a non-physical world of connections, the participating artists respond to the main theme of the exhibition and examine current cultural, emotional, structural, or metaphorical definitions of home, or construct new realities, experiences, and meanings. They creatively plug into the variety of mediated reality sub-themes and draw attention to the shift in humanity’s sense of identity, place, and belonging, and offer new interpretations for familiar concepts such as intimacy, loss, and desire.
Whether tracing home as a personal or a universal concept, the artworks selected for this exhibition utilize a combination of digital and analog technologies to mediate fresh perspectives and consolidate different discourses around home in the 21″ century. Together, they either alter time and space by eliminating physical distances and transporting viewers to faraway locations, or stir a sense of nostalgia through virtual recollections and simulated objects and interactions. In addition, they respond to various issues of our time, such as surveillance, privacy, control, disasters, immigration, spirituality, and companionship in order to comment on the social, political, and cultural attributes of the contemporary home apart from its physicality.
A significant commonality among the artworks assembled for Tracing Home is their preoccupation with the interaction between physical and virtual, actively trying to blur the line between the two – at times even attempting to occupy or operate both. They trigger viewers to question the reality of what they are confronting without fetishizing or celebrating one realm over the other. For these works, virtual and physical are only different representations of a single hybrid reality, and separation of technology from culture, or virtual from physical, is perhaps nothing but a hopeless task.
Mona Kasra, University of Texas at Dallas
Art Papers Jury
Mouna Andraos
Tad Hirsch
Craig S. Kaplan
Jason Edward Lewis
Mine Oskar
Despina Papadopoulos
Teri Rueb
Karan Singh
Tracing Home Gallery Chair
Mona Kasra
Project Manager
Elona Van Gent
Jurors
Annick Bureaud, Leonardo/OLATS
Frank Dufour, University of Texas at Dallas
Michael Hohl, University of Huddersfield
Victoria Szabo, Duke University
Online Reviewers
Lee Arnold, Drew University
Anya Belkina, Emerson College
Ryan C Buyssen, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Maria Chatzichristodoulou, University of Hull
Gene Cooper, Four Chambers Studio
Dena DeBry, Buttonwillow Six
Annie Dissaux, Cybercentre
Richard Elaver, Appalachian State University
Christa Erickson, Stony Brook University
Sue Gollifer, University of Brighton
Arthur Hash, State University of New York at New Paltz
Linda Lauro-Lazin, Pratt Institute
John Marshall, University of Michigan
Bonnie Mitchell, Bowling Green State University
Conor Peterson, University of New Mexico
Daniel Rozin, New York University
Matthew Shlian, Initiative Artist Collective
Gemma Shusterman, AtomicBee
Victoria Szabo, Duke University
Deb Todd Wheeler, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Anna Z. Ursyn, University of Northern Colorado
Elona Van Gent, University of Michigan
Lina Yamaguchi, Stanford University
Exhibition Artworks:
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Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
Art and Code
Artist(s): [Garcia Bravo and Whittinghill]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
Collaboration with the Future
Artist(s): [Gorbet, Gorbet, and Banerjee]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
Hildapromenade 4
Artist(s): [Engelhardt]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
ItSpace
Artist(s): [Traub]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
Memoirs
Artist(s): [Heo and Bang]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [3D & Sculpture]
MOSTON
Artist(s): [Belkina]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
Oh!m1gas: biomieticstridulationenvironment
Artist(s): [Auson]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
Open House
Artist(s): [Stenner and LeMeiux]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Animation & Video]
Reveries and Line Drawings
Artist(s): [Wall]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
RolyPoly
Artist(s): [Design Incubation Centre]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Performance]
Shadow Awareness
Artist(s): [Miwa, Itai, Watanabe, and Nishi]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
tele-present wind
Artist(s): [Bowen]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
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Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
The Garden of Error and Decay
Artist(s): [Bielicky and Richter]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
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Type: [Animation & Video]
The Insatiable
Artist(s): [Liou]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
The Readers Project
Artist(s): [Howe and Cayley]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
Third Skin
Artist(s): [Zapp]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
Tomorrow Will Get Better
Artist(s): [Cox]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Animation & Video]
Transplant
Artist(s): [Kumao]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Installation]
Travel Stones
Artist(s): [Martino]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
-
Type: [Animation & VideoInstallation]
Wait
Artist(s): [Andreyev]
[SIGGRAPH 2011]
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