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Thursday, June 21
Admission: Free
Viewing Time: 6pm - 10:30pm; Q&A at 10pm
reservations
are recommended
Sponsored Bar from 6pm - 8pm
AFTER MIYAJIMA (MUTATION SERIES)
by Rob Davis
http://www.aftermiyajima.com/
After Miyajima (Mutation Series) is a series of art installations
for display in spaces, either on screens or projected. Each work
consists of one or more computers with installed software and
accompanying displays. All images are generated live.
As the displayed images evolve, some versions of the installation
also generate sounds which are played in the space, with the pieces
behaving like wind chimes in a gentle breeze.
The series is comprised of ten pieces which display different
configurations of red, green, yellow and blue numerical LEDs (light
emitting diodes). LEDs were used to display output in early calculators
and digital watches and were first brought into the art space
by Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima in the late 1980s.
In Miyajima’s work, he uses LEDs to represent life and his
displays count down from nine to one before blanking out and then
restarting at nine to represent death and reincarnation.
After Miyajima (Mutation Series) breaks Miyajima's rule of sequential
counting and contrast his Eastern view of life with ideas of evolution
and genetics. The "mutation" LEDs randomly transform,
using artificial life rules to determine which segments will be
lit up or extinguished. They flash with “life energy”
and generate sound when they “discover” that they
have formed a number from one to nine. The pieces represent a
primordial soup, where life itself is forming.
The work was recently the first computer art installation to be
shown at the National Film Theatre (NFT), London. It has also
been displayed at the Great Eastern Hotel, London, The Horse Hospital,
London and Lotus, New York. It is planned for a month showing
at the Stedelijk, Amsterdam in 2007.
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