human – Post City https://ars.electronica.art/postcity/en Ars Electronica 2015 Tue, 28 Jun 2022 13:02:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.6 Second Body https://ars.electronica.art/postcity/en/second-body/ Thu, 20 Aug 2015 11:05:05 +0000 https://ars.electronica.art/postcity/?p=2565 The concept of Second Body comes from the experience of driving cars. If I want to steer the wheel, to brake, to step on the gas, I don’t need to consciously think, yet the car can still go ahead, turn, and park at the correct spot according to my will. Moreover, when I am driving, I know how big my car is when I weave through narrow alleys, and I know where the four wheels are as the car proceeds in its tracks. Maneuvering a car is an experience done almost entirely out of reflex, without the need for the brain to actively think. This reminds me of the way we move our hands and feet, which move naturally without the need for us to think. When we are infants, we learn how to use our own bodies: we learn to stand on our feet, move, and run, and gradually learn to exercise our bodies as we want. We even learn how to use our bodies to the max in certain sports and exercises. In sum, the accumulation of knowledge, concepts and training allows us to use our bodies without conscious thought, making the use of our bodies an extension of the natural, physical body itself. The same happens when learning to drive, so that driving becomes a process achieved without thinking, with the car becoming an extension of the body.

The present work starts from establishing the presence of the body, while learning the structure of the natural body through setting up knowledge of the body itself. In addition, the knowledge of the structure of exercise is used to represent what we know of our own first bodies in the moment. Afterwards, a fully functional body starts to build up, then change the environment for itself. Gradually, the environment starts to change the body as well. The following section is a 360º full body-length projection that enters the picture to create a non-natural second body, which creates an experience of movement distinct from the movements of the first body. We are re-learning this new body. Adaptation? Conflict? Do we, during the conversion between these two, produce new knowledge to define our bodies with the change in our viewing perspective? Furthermore, how does the second body replace the definition and existence of the first body in the process?

Concept, Choreography: Chieh-hua Hsieh (TW)
Software Architecture, Video Design, Music Design: Ultra Combos (TW)
Music Design: Yannick Dauby (FR)
Lighting Design: We Do Group (TW)
Custom Design: Yu-teh Yang (TW)
Visual Operator: Hsiang-ting Teng (TW)
Dancer: Shao-chin Hung (TW)
Project Support: QA Ring (TW)
Project Mentor: Justine Beaujouan (CH)

Project Consultant: Kevin Cunningham (US)

Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan and Quanta Arts Foundation (TW)

Sponsored by Quanta Computer Inc. (TW)

]]> Connecting Cities: Flame https://ars.electronica.art/postcity/en/flame/ Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:04:23 +0000 https://ars.electronica.art/postcity/?p=2706 Fire has been strongly associated with human society since early civilization. For the first hunters and gatherers, and even more for settled societies, fire defined the central gathering point and meeting place. As civilizations became more complex and villages evolved more and more into cities, fire started to become the power that forged the tools and weapons of this complexity, and hence initiated the progress of technology. Its symbolic representation rose to its highest form with the industrial revolution, where steam engines converted this power directly into usable energy, which eventually became the main driving force of the cities.

Forgotten fire

At the same time, however, this power was taken from the hands of the public and placed under the control of a few. When fire and its accompanying customs and traditions started to disappear from the cities, the people lost their say in the rules that governed them and their cities. Both fire and the mechanisms of the city became invisible, disappearing from sight and becoming incomprehensible to its citizens. Flame by Tamer Aslan (TR) und Onur Sönmez (TR) wants to give the fire back to the people, to help them forge the tools of the new century, and to burn to the ground the institutions that restrain them, if necessary.

Metal work, fire sculpture: Bernhard Ranner (AT)
Fire hardware: TBFpyrotec (AT)

Supporting Music

10:15-10:45 PM
Songs about Fire by Tracy Redhead (AU) and Michael Mayr (AT), two musicians from opposite parts off the world team up to reinterpret and resurrect songs from the past and present. With their minimalist setup of acoustic guitars and vocals, they don’t want to set the world on fire but start a little flame in the hearts.
10:45-10:55 PM
Die Kreativbeamten (Creative Clerks / AT): Brutal Germanization of tragic English love songs from the former lost century full of war and anger. Singing and Banjo – Guaranteed without emotion!
10:55-11:00 PM
Tragic romantic danube tune interpreted on the accordion by Stefan Mittlböck-Jungwirth-Fohringer (AT).

Connecting Cities is initiated by Public Art Lab in cooperation with Ars Electronica Futurelab Linz, Medialab-Prado Madrid, FACT Liverpool, Videospread Marseille, iMAL Brussels, Riga 2014, BIS Istanbul, m-cult Helsinki, Media Architecture Institute Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, in association with Aarhus University, Marseille-Provence 2013, MUTEK Montreal, Quartier des Spectacles Montreal, Foundation Bauhaus Dessau, Verve Cultural Sao Paulo, Federation Square Melbourne, xm:lab Saarbrücken, Sapporo Media Arts Lab, ETOPIA Zaragoza, The Concourse Sydney and 403 International Arts Center Wuhan.
With support of the Culture Programme 2007-2013 of the European Union.

Find more information on www.connectingcities.net

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