Daily Bruin:
New media art gives creative
spin to impersonal technology
Exhibit:
Wight Gallery display bring avant-garde sensibilities to digital
from Finland.
Digital Art often seems as cold and sterile as the technology
that produced it. Not so with F2F: New Media Art from Finland,
the new art exhibition in Wight Gallery.
The show strives to put a human face on intimidating technology.
Finland has long been a pioneer in both the digital and wireless
communications fields and a home to avant-garde art. F2F bridges
the two divergent fields through a wide mix of interactive
art projects.
Aided by the soothing yet strangely unsettling call of seagulls
from some unseen exhibit, F2F transforms the Wight Gallery
into an eerie netherworld of white planes and dark corners.
Soft music and moody sound effects further heighten the experience.
Some of the art is fun and playful, like Juha Huuskonen´s
"Mirror ++." A favorite with children, the work
acts as a blue-tinted kaleidoscope that captures the viewer´s
image and projects it, swirling and repeating, onto a nearby
wall.
Other works touch a deep chord within the human psyche.
Heidi Tikka´s "Mother, Child," for example,
simulates the experience of cradling a new-born baby. It invites
the viewer to sit on a chair and drape a white towel across
themselves, as an overhead projector casts an image of baby
on his lap. The baby, and image of Tikka´s real-life
daughter, smiles and gurgles in response to the movements
of the person " holding" her.
Heidi Tikka´s "Mother, Child" shows technology´s
capacity to inspire compassion, other works warn of how impersonal
technology can drain compassion from a society. Spectators
watch, unmoved, as animated figures meet their doom in "Hit2morrow."
"Hit2morrow" mocks the human tendency toward fatalism
with a prognostication archery game. Patrons take turns firing
a foam-tipped bow and arrow at a virtual target. A direct
hit on the bull's eye reveals a short computer animated prediction
about the future.
"Tomorrow," one enigmatic forecast warns, "everyone
will drown." A hapless group of pastelcolored people,
bearing an eerie resemblance to the giant stone heads of Easter
Island fame, dance in the field before a Kremlin-like building.
Before the viewer´s eyes, the water level starst to
rise, slowly but surely consuming the islanders, who continue
their relentless capering until the bitter end.
"Hit2morrow´s" predictions are not always
so dire, ranging from the strange to the absurd to the disturbing.
When the piece claims that "tomorrow the chosen one will
arrive," it is accompanied by a film of the same animated
islanders on the run from tanks.
At the last second, a giant floating cross rips across the
screen, drops bombs on the pursuing tanks, the blasts off
into space. "Tomorrow we will be many" features
the same islanders, lined up in rows, slowly multiplying,
while eerie techno music plays.
Technology can be used to fill human needs, but often its
excesses encourage people to label their "wants"
as "needs."
"Need," Tuomo Tammenpää´s wry comment
on consumer culture, caused a stir when it first premiered
in Los Angeles. Before the opening, Tammenpää posted
signs and distributed leaflets at restaurants and coffee shops
around town, advertising an imaginary product called "Need."
Altough the concept first mystified some patrons, Tammenpää´s
intentions became clear when customers actually began to calling
in to order "Need." Altough they had no idea what
the product was, they were convinced that they desperately
needed to posses it.
The sculpture itself consists of a small sterilewhite alcove,
lit by almost blinding white lights. Neatly arranged stacks
of CDs, boxes, bottles, pill packs, solution vials and aluminum
cans, each bearing the "need" logo, line the surrounding
glass shelves, Not surprisingly, each box is empty and every
CD is blank: The mysterious "Need" that everyone
needs is nowhere to be found.
A computer terminal additionally allows viewers to visit the
"Need" Web site, become members, and "order"
nonexistent "Need" merchandise.
The Internet is also an integral part of "IceBorg,"
a virtual world that builds on the same technology as do Internet
chat rooms, allowing viewers to use an animated avatar to
explore a virtual world. Andy Best´s simulated planet
represents a deserted minig asteroid, over-exploitet and plaguet
by pollution.
Apparently, many years ago, a space trasport crashed, stranding
its helpless crew on the desolate rock. While awaiting rescue,
the survivors have built a new civilization.
The audience can explore the intricacies of the asteroid society
through their character, a leg-less blue humanoid wearing
a space suit that strolls leisurely across landscapes of burning
lava and frigid ice on his unuasully long arms. The wandering
creature can stride through an ocean of molten rock just as
easily ashe can float above it and his calm fluid movements
draw viewer into his faux reality.
Altough it uses real actors, Teijo Pellinen´s "Aquarium"
creates a world no less "virtual." The piece is
based on a popular interactive Finnish television series of
the same name.
Set up to resemble a living room. The viewers sits in a plush
arm chair to watch television show about a bored Finnish couple.
A convenient telephone allows the viewer to direct the actions
of the characters using a choose-your-own-adventure format
by pressing different buttons to perform various actions.
With such wildly original ideas, the only limits on the show
are not imposed by lack of imagination, but by the inherent
difficulties of dealing with new technology.
Unfortunately, not every piece of art goes off snag-free and
a couple pieces are still under construction. Even so, the
projects look promising and minor technical difficulties should
not deter people from exploring this unique show.
The somber mood of the gallery gives the exhibition an unsettling
otherworldly quality. While this might not exactly meet the
show´s goal of mollifying technophobes, the atmosphere
does suit an exhibition that showcases both the yin and yang
of new technology. With the artists´astute observations
of human nature, F2F makes for an exciting and thought-provoking
experience.
ART:
F2F, New Media in Finnish Art is on display in the New Wight
Gallery in Dickson Arts Center through October.
By Michael Rosen-Molina
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Friday, September 29, 2000
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