Tuesday, September 15, 2009

state of formation

state of formation
presented by IBM EXHIBITION SPACE (IBM 3, Secondlife)
Curated by Andrew Sempere (Tezcatlipoca Bisiani)
OPENING: 2pm SLT (5pm EST) SEPTEMBER 16th, 2009
SLURL: IBM 3/83/39/22
IBM SPACE: Gallery Information

UNTIL: December 1st, 2009

blogs about state of formation:
notecard text for the show by Mab MacMoragh:
An expressionless blank avatar turns, seeming to be a fountain statue, centered over a dark round basin.  Around the well, little black cubes crawl on a white ground splattered in black, a big white cube orbits the air generating a suspended vanishing trail in its wake, and five identical white chairs await.  All is enclosed within a constantly transforming structure of semitransparent panels screened with typeface characters.

Selavy Oh's state of formation reveals itself only to the one willing to explore the installation beyond its superficial appearance. Beginning outside, the visitor walks through moving lettered planes and leaves behind short-lived traces of landforms risen in the water ringing the center.  Finally, the visitor reaches the inner boundary to sit on each of the chairs facing the fountain--and to surrender control.  The visitor's fixed gaze is taken over in a brisk encounter with changing viewpoints and flashing images.

Monday, September 14, 2009

fourty four flowers

forty four flowers is a sound piece for mab macmoragh's sim eryri, and has also been shown at the artificial lawn of brooklyn is watching (mentioned by jay in a comment to this blog, but erroneously attributed to another work, see other comments). invisible moving sound sources play the names of forty four flowers, whispered by two different speakers. the visitor is confronted with the contradiction between the simulated environment, the invisible whispering human voices, and personal memories evoked by the flower names.
voices by amy freelunch (amy wilson) and arahan claveau (steve millar). arahan also made a video (well, more a sound recording) of it, see it here.