A brief report of Haptic Interface Lecture (Also for field report of GE1302Science of Art)

On 14^th November, I went to a public lecture of “Haptic Interface” that brought together 20 leading artist and creative thinkers from all over the world to give a talk about the exploration of the borders between art, science and technology. This event was held in an exhibition gallery in Hong Kong Baptist University. Miss Audrey Samson, who is the tutor of the Contemporary and New Media Art, encouraged us to participate in this event as she was one of the artists that would present in the lecture. Most of the artist presented many interesting works and ideas to us during the talk, so I am going to introduce some of my favorite artists and works in my field trip report.

    Firstly, I would like to introduce Audrey’ works as she had delivered the most interesting idea about the interaction of human body and electronic technology. She is exploring the possibility of using our body as surface of reception and transmission. We are used to enjoy the advanced technological products such as smartphones, ipads, laptops, etc. Actually everyone becomes the central transmission and reception point of electromagnetic wave. However, when these high-tech products are spoiled or they are outdated, we are also used to throw them away. Therefore, we abandon enormous of electronic devices that results in landfills of electronic and chemical wastes every day. Audrey thinks of transforming those refuse into experimental components.

    One of her works is to make use of the components of broken appliance to create accessories like necklace and rings. In fact, it is not the focal point of her project. She is more concentrate in making human body as a part of electromagnetic receptor. She tried to build some wearable devices that can transform those invisible electromagnetic fields to be audible by headphone.

Here are some of her works:

It is a receiving gadget installed on the amp and also to the headphone.

 

She tried to place the copper circuit on the surface of body and make the body as the “device” itself.

 

Here is the video that showing what she is doing.

http://roger10-4.hotglue.me/--------

 

Audrey’s work is really inspiring of the interaction between human body and technology. She reminds us about the forgotten electronic refuse. Electronic technological products are not just something that comforts human beings, they are also the important partners to us. When I watch the videos that Audrey brought her devices onto the streets and used them to scan for some electromagnetic fields, I found that the sounds come out from the fields just like they are talking to receptors.  We thought that these electronic products are things that can be abandoned in anytime, but they seems to be alive in Audrey’s experiment. I think this is the most impressive and amazing part of her work.

Secondly, I am going to talk about Raune FranKjaer’s project ----The Garden.

Here is the video that displaying her work.

http://vimeo.com/couchmode/raune/videos/sort:date/49627997

“The Garden” is a beautiful sculpture that appears like a seeding located on the river banks of Main in Frankfurt, Germany. It is a project for the “Green City Frankfurt” campaign, which introduce the idea of sustainable development. The concept of the leaf came from the street map of Frankfurt. She quoted a part of the central of Frankfurt city with the shape of leaf, and the network of streets became the veins of leaf, thus each vein is actually representing a street in Frankfurt.

Then she added the stem to the leaf and converted the whole idea in 3D version.

 

 

The stem and veins are divided to many individual parts which are smeared highly energy-efficient electroluminescent paint. We can see the blue light pass through the entire stem and leaf which looks like a glowing plant. However, the intensity of light depends on the level of energy efficiency of that street. Therefore, the higher of energy efficiency of the street, the brighter the light of a particular vein can be.

Under the seeding sculpture is a place covered with grass for people to take a rest and enjoy the view. Raune says it is representing the effort of Frankfurt to become a Co2 neutral city.

    This stunning artwork is the combination of science, technology, art and nature indeed. It applies the technology of using energy-efficient materials on this work to send a message of environment protection. Also, the idea of transforming the map as a leaf is really impressive. Our society is always growing very rapidly but we should not forget to balance the environment and the development. This seeding sculpture stands next to the Main river and it is also surrounded by many towers (we can see them on the background). It looks so small but strong and bright. It encourages people to treasure their environment and glow it from a little seed to a big tree. Now the effort made by the city only grows it to be a seeding, so everyone should work together to grow it as a tree.

All the things together generate a meaningful and beautiful art piece.

Reference:

http://vimeo.com/49831418

http://urbaninteraction.net/the-garden/

 

Thirdly, I would like to introduce Elizabeth Shaw, who is working on tableware and jewellery design. I want to share some of her interesting work here. Raune’s works are crossing between sculpture, biology and mechanic. As she like to mix up the biological sculpture with mechanical fragments.

    After she had introduced her artworks, I found that most of her works are always like the mixture of sculpture and mechanical components. In fact, I was confused of the meanings of these artworks so I went to her website and found a statement describing her works.

    The works in this exhibition were all fabricated in response to found incomplete objects. Drawing inspiration from the use of fragments to communicate a particular history in religious reliquaries and museum artifacts, I looked to repair and reconstruct fragmentary evidence to present new meaning; each piece is fabricated evidence. ( http://www.visualartist.info/visualartist/artist/subpage.asp?ex=gallery&I=1753&sub=5335&artistId=1307&PageId=17530)

The statement above is talking about one of her exhibitions in 2010 called “Evidence”. All her works in this exhibition are incomplete evidence that we can commonly see in museum. She installed mechanical components on these incomplete objects. For example, she made a machine jaw for a dinosaur skull.

Augmented skull

In this picture, we can see a mechanical dinosaur talon.

Talon

She added a metal arm bone to the claw.

 

Claw

    Those pictures below are another series of work called “Tool” but they are actually relating to the previous exhibition of “evidence”. She made use of found or collected fragments to create these series of works. This time, some of her works are the mixture of human body sculptures and mechanical components.

For instance, the “tapper” appears like a human finger that is tapping on a wooden board. Raune said this was a tapping machine. When you press the button on the top, the metal finger will help you to tap the table. The second work called tamper but I have no idea of what it is.

Tapper

The second work called tamper but I have no idea of what it is. Maybe the little machine installed to the foot is to assist the movement of the joints.

 

Temper

And finally, it is a mixture of woman head and knife.

Pocket knife

In my point of view, these works are presenting the idea of the importance of mechanic in our daily life, but sometimes, we seem to too much rely on those technological things. Just like the tapping machine, is it appropriate for us to use finger machine instead of using our own finger? Perhaps she also wants to explore the historical meaning of mechanic and its relationship to art.

All pictures found in: http://www.visualartist.info/visualartist/artist/subpage.asp?ex=gallery&I=1753&artistId=1307&PageId=1753

“Haptic Interface” lecture is not just exploring the border between art and science, it is also giving us new idea of the relationship between science and our bodies. Hence, the topic called “Haptic Interface” is not because the lecture is about electricity device (like smartphone), the haptic interface is actually concerning the connection of human and science. Artists transformed this kind of idea into art form such as the tapping machine, the wearable electromagnetic detection device, and even “The Garden” which is very much related to our life. I think my horizon have been widely opened after this meaningful workshop as it is a rare chance for me to meet so many leading artist in the world and appreciate so many innovative artworks at once.