Artist Statement
Theme: Pacific Rim. Container Culture: Hong Kong Container. Venue: South Hall
Curator: Ellen Pau
Phenakistoscape is a kinetic interface of locative telematic experiments within the larger context of an investigation into the metaphysics of moving image projection and the contemporary culture of on-line cooperative distribution. In this work, a mechanical algorithmic approach to video projection within physical space creates a dynamic and unexpected labyrinth as a reconstructed architecture of time and space, unfolding an entirely distinct scheme for experiencing the profound poetry encoded in cinematic space.
In the vertical city, we live amid neon and streetlights. A shipping container would be a large-size living space for one person living in Hong Kong. Our horizontal line of sight is limited, but only the sky limits our vertical line of sight. If the dimension of space and time will be different in flat land, the perception of moving images from vertical land is an imaginative space that can be both nauseating and nostalgic.
In Phenakistoscape I adopted the idea of intertextuality in movies, creating a montage with “running” scenes and camera movements, either pans, tilts, zooms or tracking shots with narrative development. The movies consist of short sequences produced by the community. Each movie clip is edited and stored in a database. How they are sequenced in real time depends on a fluid algorithm that analyzes the camera movement in the clip.
The camera movements in the movie clips control a custom-made robotic video projector specially constructed for the project. The robotic projector will pan left when there is a pan to the right and tilt up when there is a downward shot. Apart from the pan and tilt action, the robotic projector will move around the container space, facilitating the zoom shots of the moving images. Ultrasonic sensors will be placed around the space, for the sensing of obstacles, including viewers.
In addition to the robotic projector, there is also a stationary video projection from the ceiling, which will project the same video content as the robotic projector but from another perspective: a matrix of images composed of individual frames of the video.
- Annie On Ni Wan (HK/CA) s an activist artist working in audiovisual art and research on interfaces for media art. She has received a Master of Science degree in Art and Technology at Innovative Design, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Her recent works, including locative-media and interactive installations, have been shown in Mondal Museum, Sweden; Syndicate Potential, Strasbourg, France; at an interactive theater performance in Oslo, Norway; and in a locative-media project presentation in Berlin, Germany. She has received travel and project grants from various organizations in Hong Kong, Sweden and Norway, from the Nordic Fund and the EU Culture Fund. Her latest project, GeoLeds, has been presented and exhibited in the Art+Communication Festival 2004 in Riga, Latvia, Piksel 2004, FLOSS in Motion and 13IX Bergen, Norway. Her kinetic art interface research paper, as well as part of her master’s thesis “Positive/Negative Space”, has been presented at the Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Conference 2004, Singapore. On Ni Wan is currently a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), University of Washington, Seattle, USA, with a full scholarship and a Top Scholar award.
- Ellen Pau is a Hong Kong–based video artist. Her earlier works describe and inter-rogate cultural/sexual identity in postcolonial Hong Kong. Pau’s works have been shown internationally at pop music concerts, performances, conferences and festivals. She has been an artist-in-residence at Holland’s Mu Art Foundation, the OK Centre in Linz, Austria, Spacex Gallery in the UK, Griffith University in Australia, and Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. Pau founded the media-arts group Video-tage and has served as its director since 1986. She also founded the Microwave Media Art Festival in Hong Kong, presenting internationally renowned new-media artists and curators such as Jeffrey Shaw, Stelarc, Sommerer & Mignonneau, and Solange Farkas. She has been a media art curator since the early days of media art and has curated multimedia programs for Videotage, museums, galleries and festivals such as Trans-mediale (Berlin) since 1985. She has been appointed Museum Honorary Adviser and assessor for the Hong Kong Art Development Council. Pau also teaches media art and film in universities and institutions.