ACT Festival 2019: FoodHack

The fifth thematic exhibition of ACT Center

Yaloo Seaweed GardenAsia Culture Center (ACC)

ACT Festival 2019 《FoodHack》

The 2019 ACT Festival, held under the theme of “FoodHack,” focuses on “food”, one of the highly creative and advanced cultures. The ACT Festival 《FoodHack》 presents what today’s artists think about food and their ideas about alternatives that can help us fight growing environmental pollution. The exhibition, together with the 2019 International Symposium on Electronic Art, introduces the results of the “Creators in Lab X ISEA 2019.”

Yaloo Seaweed GardenAsia Culture Center (ACC)

1. Showcase

Aerobanquets RMXAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Aerobanquets RMX

<aerobanquets rmx>, loosely based on a book 『Futurist Cookbook』 published in 1932, provides the audience with a chance to experience mixed senses including taste, vision (VR), and the sense of touch. In collaboration with chef Chintan Pandya, the artist introduces novel, multi-sensory dishes inspired by futuristic food. 

Aerobanquets RMXAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Mattia Casalegno is an Italian artist who utilizes various media such as video, sculpture, immersive installation, and life system.

Yaloo Seaweed GardenAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Yaloo Seaweed Garden

<yaloo seaweed garden> pays attention to “seaweeds,”, an ingredient closely linked to Asian countries’ traditional values and cultures. In the digital media work, seaweeds appear as a motif to build a world which is visually exaggerated and technically very affluent.

Yaloo Seaweed GardenAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Yaloo, a Korean visual artist, acquired a master’s degree on digital image making & video installation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2015, and has actively worked on creating pieces with digital media.

#shapeofgreedAsia Culture Center (ACC)

#shapeofgreed

Minje Jeon thought that taking photos of food and posting them on Instagram with hashtags such as #food and #foodporn became a culture. The work started with such questions: “What is driving people to continue to do so?”, “If people’s greed or desire is one of the driving forces, in what shape can it be expressed?” 

#shapeofgreedAsia Culture Center (ACC)

The artist has attempted to collect numerous images with food-related hashtags, and disassembled and analyzed these images to reconstruct them visually and with sounds.

Believing that data is a mirror reflecting a society, Jeon presents data in diverse ways in his works.

Learning About HumanityAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Learning
About Humanity

Unhappy Circuit displays a live performance in which dishes are made based on recipes created by artificial intelligence (AI). To create a new recipe, AI learns from text data which contains people’s recipes. At the same time, the process of AI learning from data is being shown to the audience in the form of a visualized content with sounds. Looking at new dishes made of meat by AI, the audience is prompted to give a thought to our carnivorous culture.

Learning About HumanityAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Unhappy Circuit, with its focus on computer algorithm music, encompasses digital media experiment arts, science and engineering areas. It also ponders on what we would be like in the future, by combining and expanding the boundaries of diverse media and technologies.

Kitchen Makerspace CookbookAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Kitchen Makerspace Cookbook

For the artist, a kitchen is a laboratory where one can carry out creative experiments with fire, water, a table, a storage, and even a range of chemical ingredients. The artist explores sub-themes such as ingredients, tools, processes, technologies, and knowledge sharing, all in relation to “making,” in order to show that a kitchen can serve as a maker space. And the process and results are suggested in “Kitchen Makerspace Cookbook”.

Kitchen Makerspace Cookbook, From the collection of: Asia Culture Center (ACC)
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As a writer and designer, Park Eun-young focuses on playing convergence of arts and technology, as well as making works that combine crafts and advanced technology.

The Appendix HumanAsia Culture Center (ACC)

The
Appendix Human

<the appendix human> is a project that explores and imagines the appendix, one of human’s vestigial organs. Researchers say that the appendix affects people’s immune system, and the appendix is known to be closely related with our health and diet. In this sense, this project explores a new relationship and possibilities between our life and the appendix.  

The Appendix HumanAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Paul Gong sees design as a research method and a tool to explore different possibilities, to criticize the past and the present, and to speculate the future. He attempts to create scenarios people can imagine and explore, by using installations, texts, image, conceptual objects, and exhibitions.

Human MakgeolliiAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Human
Makgeollii

<human makgeolli> is an art work which shows, through microorganisms, that living organisms within our body are present in food, and that living organisms in food also exist in our body. For the work, the artist used the individual microbial community of the late Lee Kyung Hae, a farmer and activist, to make Makgeolli, based on microbiology and forensic science. As a result, an individual’s microbial community has been successfully turned into an art piece.

Human MakgeolliiAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Ting Tong Chang is a Taiwanese artist based in London. The artist acquired a master’s degree from Goldsmiths University of London. He has held private exhibitions in Kunstkraftwerk Leigzig, Asia House London, and Taipei Museum.

Future food experiences using augmented reality – Under the Sea by Air Floating Media(Noriyuki Juni)Asia Culture Center (ACC)

Future food experiences using augmented reality – Under the Sea

Air Floating Media imagines future Japan where individuality and diversity are more respected than today. And it expresses ‘food for individuals to enjoy hobbies’, and ‘food to enjoy favorite contents’ beyond ‘food to live’ through AR (Augmented Reality). The work realizes AR which can be experienced with naked eyes.

Sonic Taste by Cyber Interface Lab(Felipe Reinoso Carvalho & Takuji Narumi)Asia Culture Center (ACC)

Sonic Taste

<sonic taste> by Dr. Felipe Reinoso Carvalho is an interdisciplinary research project to explore ways to enhance the experience of taste through  sounds and music. According to the latest psychological studies,  all our senses can be effectively used to enhance the multi-sensory experience. The exhibition shows the sounds commonly used in Asia to boost such experiences, as well as  what these sounds have in common or how they differ from the sounds used in other cultures.

hidden layerAsia Culture Center (ACC)

hidden
layer

<hidden layer> (2019) is a place-specific interactive installation, which collects data of spaces such as artificial cities and nature. In the work, many biosensors that collect information about the environment are installed in the space, and the data are converted into a physical form or a light. The data are visualized into a large grid or a mesh comprised of beams of light, and sounds are also created based on real-time sound waves on the site. 

hidden layer, From the collection of: Asia Culture Center (ACC)
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Johnny Di Blasi has explored aesthetic possibilities with data collected in real time, and looked for ways to connect our environment and technology.

PlantConnect by Carlos Castellanos & Bello BelloAsia Culture Center (ACC)

PlantConnect

<plantconnect> by Carlos Castellanos is a system built for interaction between humans and plants. It is based on our acts of breathing, the bioelectrical and photosynthetic activities of plants, and computational intelligence. This project explores new possibilities through information delivery, communication, and mutual connection between materials, humans and non-humans. 

Goodnight Sweetheart by FRAUD(Audrey Samson & Francisco Gallardo)Asia Culture Center (ACC)

Goodnight Sweetheart

Data that does not die completely tends to bother us. Even when servers are deleted and books are burnt, information is leaked and stories are passed on to others. We often forget the fact that deletion is also an important part of creating an archive. <goodnight sweetheart> by FRAUD talks about the politics of deletion through a funeral of digital data.

African Robots in the City of Light - Anthropophagic Octopus by Ralph BorlandAsia Culture Center (ACC)

African Robots in the City of Light - Anthropophagic Octopus

Ralph Borland’s work attempts to combine his exploration of Gwangju’s local crafts and design culture with a number of subcultures including electronic engineering, sound systems, hacking, and toymaking. The artist’s unique perspective and skills at design, sculpture, and manufacture meet Gwangju’s culture, to be embodied in the form of small robots.

The South African Artist Building Robots From Recycled Materials by Ralph BorlandAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Ralph Borland is an artist, designer, and curator, as well as a multidisciplinary knowledge worker based in Cape Town, South Africa. The artist takes flexible, interdisciplinary approaches on various themes such as power, activism, social participation through design objects, aesthetics of instant design, popular culture, sound and music, and multimedia and sculpture.

Quantum-tonAsia Culture Center (ACC)

2. A/V Performance

Space Time HelixAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Space Time Helix

<space time helix> is an audiovisual performance that utilizes “optoacoustic (optic + acoustic)” instruments to conjure up a large helicoid reaching up to the ceiling. Accompanied by very subtle sounds, the vertical translucence waves of light ascend to the roof, forming an arc, as they intertwine with one another. The performance covers various themes including helical symmetries and infinity, frequencies and geometry, and also sonic visions and perceptions. 

Space Time HelixAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Michela Pelusio mostly works on immersive live audiovisual installations, kinetic sculptures, and performance works. The artist explores human perception, physical phenomena, visual and sound, as well as art and science.

Quantum-tonAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Quantum-ton

Sound visual performance <quantum-ton> is the 3rd chapter of the artist’s “Hyper Serial Music” project. The project combines serialism, one of important musical composition methods of the 20th century, with contemporary technologies, such as artificial intelligence. Hyper Serial Music leverages structure, complexity, and loudness to challenge the limit of human auditory perception and cognition, while visually structualizing relationships in quantum energy.

Quantum-tonAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Tatsuru Arai aims at creating sound art that embodies human perception of the physical phenomenon of sound and let people experience the essence through sound. In particular, the artist is trying to achieve musical perception via non-auditory senses.

Quantum-tonAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Arai’s “trance-age music” connects classical composition methods with modern technology to conceptually materialize a physical environment which serves as the root of the universe. The artist focuses on elements such as artificial impacts, sounds, and physical phenomena that enables understanding of the essence of the universe through the beauty of “geometric structures.”

The age of digital/analogue by LU SISIAsia Culture Center (ACC)

The age of digital/analogue

<the age of digital /analogue> is composed of scenes that Lu-SISI captured while travelling across the United Kingdom from 2011 to 2015. The artist recorded the heritage of British Industrial Revolution and the application of industrial robotics in car manufacturing, as well as the sublime scenery of Snowdonia and the Isle of Skye. Incorporating a range of performative and live elements, the audiovisual performance features video clips of machines, landscapes, industrial facilities, and animations, as well as archived materials.

Membrane by Push 1 stop & WiklowAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Membrane

<membrane> by Cadie Desbiens-Desmules and Michael Dean combines audiovisual performance with installation art. Operating machines real-time, the performers engage in a playful exchange with the constantly changing images. The three-dimensional images dancing in the fog provide an intense multi-sensory experience for the audience.

ImpermanenceAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Impermanence

<impermanence> consists of glitch noises and 3D graphic particles that are constantly changing and regenerated.

ImpermanenceAsia Culture Center (ACC)

CLAUDE is an audio-visual artist based in Korea. The artist performed in a number of electronic music festivals including ‘WeSA’, ‘ICMC 2018’, ‘WATMM’, ‘BEEP’ .

waveAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Wave

〈Wave)  is based on the hypothesis that the ocean is the origin of life. The beginning and the end of life were depicted using organic forms of waves.

Construct V3 by KohuiAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Construct V3

〈Construct V3〉 incorporates “found landscapes” discovered and downloaded from the Internet as the backdrop of a virtual space, where 3D shapes, lights, sound elements are added. Approaching the landscape from an individual perspective, the artist demonstrates the process of communicating and building relationships within the digital network.

AnthropogenicAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Anthropogenic

〈Anthropogenic〉 is an audiovisual work of art that captures the destructiveness of artificially transforming nature. The work is an imperative for us to face the contemporary disaster that we are now living in the self-destructive age called Anthropocene.

Anthropogenic, From the collection of: Asia Culture Center (ACC)
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Ko-hui has been creating real-time audio-visuals using digital objects and sounds in the cyberspace. The artist is nowadays interested in the relationship between humanity and nature, based on “deep ecology.”

Interférence (String Network)Asia Culture Center (ACC)

Interférence (String Network)

<interférence (string network)> is an audiovisual performance, showing a real-time electroacoustic work of art. Using devices composed of a network of strings and sensors, Alexis Langevin-Tétrault creates a world that incorporates industrial noises and electronica and acousmatic music. 

Interférence (String Network)Asia Culture Center (ACC)

As a composer and stage performer, Alexis Langevin-Tétrault participated in a variety of experimental music projects under pseudonyms Falaises, DATANOISE, QUADr, ILEA, and BetaFeed. The artist is currently exploring designing audiovisual devices, physical performance, theatrical production design and dramaturgy, and critical utilization of digital audio technologies.

Lost, but not lost foreverAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Lost, but not lost forever

<lost, but not lost forever> is a sound performance that uses old media devices to create new soundscapes. The work asks a question about life expectancy of a medium. “Is there a media that has yet to die?” “What’s the new medium that is going to conquer the world?”

Lost, but not lost foreverAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Monica Vlad creates new sound by altering the functions of old media equipment and daily objects. The artist creates a “contradictory sound landscape” that has opened up new, infinite possibilities of the noise genre by utilizing genres that are polar-opposites. The visual images combined with sound provides the audience with new immersive experience.

BreathAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Breath

<breath> is an interactive installation/performance that operates with human breaths. Made of DIY circuits and electronics scraps, the device converts breaths of the audience into the flickering of light bulbs and sounds and thus brings life to inanimate objects. An embodiment of life and death, the work explores the fluctuating relationships between humanity, nature, and the machine.

BreathAsia Culture Center (ACC)

Sabina Hyoju Ahn works with various media, sounds, and organisms, focused on shedding light on hidden rules and styles.

CODING IN ATYPICAL PLACESAsia Culture Center (ACC)

CODING IN ATYPICAL PLACES

Audiovisual life performance <coding in atypical places> is based on live cinema coding and experimental music. A mixture of algorithmic music, generative video, and light controls weaves a non-linear narrative set in a post-internet era Mexico City featuring a "cyber decora" girl.

CODING IN ATYPICAL PLACES, From the collection of: Asia Culture Center (ACC)
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CNDSD + Ivan Abreu are exploring the possibilities of live coding for musical and visual improvisation. They are interested in visualizing the structure of algorithmic music and utilizing generative cinema to give new meanings to sound improvisation and live cinema, through which the artists create music that crosses the boundaries.

Credits: Story

2019 ACT Festival : FoodHack
2019. 6. 26 ~ 2019. 6. 28

Organized by
Asia Culture Center
Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

Hosted by
Asia Culture Institute

The ACT Festival 2019 will be presented jointly with the ISEA 2019.

Artists
Mattia Casalegno, Yaloo, Minje Jeon, Unhappy Circuit, Eunyoung Park, Paul Gong, Ting Tong Chang & Andrea Núñez Casal, Air Floating Media(Noriyuki Juni), Cyber Interface Lab(Felipe Reinoso Carvalho & Takuji Narumi), Johnny DiBlasi, Carlos Castellanos & Bello Bello, FRAUD(Audrey Samson & Francisco Gallardo), Ralph Borland, Michela Pelusio, Tatsuru Arai, LU SISI, Push 1 stop & Wiklow, CLAUDE, Kohui, Alexis Langevin-Tétrault, Monica Vlad, Sabina Hyoju Ahn, CNDSD X Iván Abreu Ochoa

ACT Festival 2015: TEKTÕNICS
ACT Festival 2016: Heterotopia—Common spaces unseen
ACT Festival 2017: Inbetween Dramatic Networking
Act Festival 2018: Otherly Space / Knowledge

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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