ISEA2022 Main Ceremony
Introductory / Welcoming Notes Title:
- ISEA2022 Main Ceremony
Venue(s):
Category:
Abstract:
Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau will host the Main Ceremony of ISEA2022 Barcelona, on June 14, where the testimony will be passed to the next city that will host the Symposium, Paris.
- 19:00 p.m. Reception and registration of attendees- Visit to the exhibition of digital art with five works from the ISEA2022 Barcelona call and twenty pieces from the .Beep Collection.
- 20:00 p.m. Welcome drink
- 20.15 p.m. Speeches
- 20.30 p.m. Performance “Ventriloquist ontology”, by Afroditi Psarra
- 20.45 p.m. Standing Cocktail dinner
- 21.50 p.m Fractal Listening (audiovisual performance), by Sebastian Seifert
- 22.30 p.m. Mapping Cité Mémoire, by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon in collaboration with Michel Marc Bouchard,
- 23.10 p.m Closing
There is in nature, a mysterious and complex mathematical system that repeats itself over and over again, an underlying geometric pattern in forms as disparate as clouds, mountains, trees or our own circulatory system. Its distinctive feature is self-similarity, the same configuration that is repeated at different scales, branching out infinitely. There are those who believe that it is “God’s fingerprint”, “the absolute truth of the universe”.
In Fractal Listening, any attempt at stylistic corseting is diluted in the hybridization of artistic languages. Thus, the fractal images dialogue with acoustic and electronic sounds in an interweaving of infinite kinesthetic notes. In this way, abstract figures in strident colors outline mandalas and enigmatic portals, piercing the virtual canvas with three-dimensional shapes that evoke sacred geometry. This incessant algorithmic repetition generated by pre-established codes, sometimes follows a visual choreography and other times -altered by the frequencies of live sound- it improvises an organic dance, introducing variations to the original pattern. Simultaneously, the sound dimension is embodied in layers and loops, intertwining the electronic bases of IDM, ambient and experimental with the live chords of a guitar. Intervening the work, a trumpet interprets vibrant and moving jazz melodies with harmonics that generate sensations of body and spirit, closing the virtuous circle with a sensory, immersive and enveloping atmosphere.
In 2019, Microfeel & Santiago Bartolomé began their collaborative work with the aim of furthering their respective creative pursuits. This path of experimentation materialized in different artistic proposals. In 2021 they created the live show AV Fractal Listening, the work combines digital art, electronic music and the guitar of the multimedia artist Microfeel (Sebastián Seifert) with the trumpet and processes of the musician and composer Santiago Bartolomé.
Sebastián Seifert – Fractal Listening Ventriloquist Ontology is a media performance that explores the limits of control and points of hybridization between the human and the machine Ventriloquist Ontology is a media performance that conceptually stems out of philosophical ideas that are rooted in the realms of Posthumanism, Actor Network Theory and Object-Oriented Ontology. Inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s dystopian theatrical play The School of Ventriloquists, it encompasses the creation of a modular wearable, trained using Natural Language Processing to create its own language that manifests in the form of speech and movement actuation. It explores the idea of soft control and points of hybridization between human and machine through the relationship of a performer and a wearable entity. This soft modular entity speaks through text generated using the GPT-2 language model, trained on a dataset of texts around biopolitics, algo-governance, the surveillanced body, and queer theory. The softness aspect of its control refers to the plasticity of the interface, the malleability of its hardware connections, the suggestive nature that the GPT-2 generated text pertains to, and the indicative nature of the movement of the actuators.
Sequentially, it brings forth the soft data of the body inextricably linked to ideas of care and intimacy, as well as to the pliability of the different levels of interpretation between the human and the machine. The aspect of control is tied to the cybernetic idea of steering the body to its optimal movement through a feedback loop between machinic language, and human assimilation. It also deals with the hardness of the linear actuators and the microcontroller that manipulates them, to the domination of these mechanical components over the softness and vulnerability of the human flesh. Ultimately, the idea of ventriloquism is used to give agency to an ontological entity comprised of subtle suggestive wearable modules, human flesh and cognitive motor abilities, born-digital, able to produce novel language, but also conditioned to reproduce the biases of its algorithmic parts.
Stillfrom the Ventriloquist Ontology performance presented at the iii Workspace, The Hague. H2Emotion invites you on June 14 to the tableau from the renowned Cité Mémoire Montréal projection circuit.
The Grand Tableau from Cité Mémoire will be projected onto the façade of the Sant Pau Hospital. It is a journey through the key periods in Montreal’s history: the Indigenous presence, French Regime, British conquest and contemporary Montreal —a look at more than 375 years of history.
Created by multidisciplinary artists Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon in collaboration with playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, the majestic digital work takes a poetic and playful look on the city of Montreal through images, words and music.
June 14
· 10:30 pm – 11:15pm
· 11:15 pm – midnighth2emotion.ca
https://www.montrealenhistoires.com/cite_memoire/
Guest of Honour at ISEA2022 Barcelona
