Syndicate: aurora

[czegledy@interlog.com (Nina Czegledy)]

Dear Syndicalists,

this is a virtual invitation to you all - please come and visit and send me
your comments or inquiries.
the opening night on Friday was a roaring success with hundreds of people
attending.
nina


Aurora Universalis, an exhibition of installations.
http://www. interaccess.org/aurora

The Aurora Universalis intercultural telecommunications project,  has been
conceived in 1996  by Stephen Kovats,  architect and media artist in
collaboration with Nina Czegledy, media artist and curator. A series of
various aurora events were planned and accordingly, in August, 1997, a
remote test-transmission was conducted -via the Internet- by Stephen Kovats
from Rankin Inlet, Northwest Territories, to InterAccess electronic media
arts centre in Toronto. On August 29, 1998, the Goethe Institute of Toronto
hosted  the Aurora Reflections panel, with the participation of Stephen
Kovats, Peter Mettler, film director (Picture of Light) moderated by David
Rokeby, media artist. Future plans include wireless transmissions from the
Canadian arctic with the participation of Marko Peljhan of Macrolab.

On January 30 (toFebruary 28), 1998, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts
Centre,Toronto, presents  Aurora an exhibition of installations dealing
with electromagnetic interference. The show includes works by Douglas Back,
Paul Davies, Victoria Scott, Neil Wiernik as well as Catherine Richards'
Curiosity Cabinet at the End of the Millenium. Charged Hearts, the
multiuser web-site (www.charged-hearts.net/)  representing Richards most
current installation -on show between January 16-March 15, 1998 at The
Powerplant, Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto-  is exhibited as part of the
Aurora show at InterAccess. The exhibition is curated by Nina Czegledy.

The Aurora Universalis exhibition highlights the relationship between
transcendental forces and the life of ordinary human beings. The themes of
the exhibition include: the role of repetition in human, natural and
technological processes and actions: the cultural significance of the
detection of radioactivity; the allure and possible danger of living in an
environment that is alive with information and seems to demand constant
connectivity.

Catherine Richards work explores the boundaries between body and machine.
In the closed circuit of her Cabinet, the participant/visitor is supposedly
shielded from magnetic interference, and becomes "unplugged" from the
"plugged-in" state of our contemporary surroundings. In contrast,  "Charged
Hearts" in the Powerplant,  invites visitors/participants to become part in
the electromagnetically charged atmosphere.  By walking on the glass and
steel platform and touching one of the bell jars containing a blown glass
heart, a sensor is activated and the glass-object  transmits a
phosphorescent glow. Simultaneously the spectator's heart-pulse data is
sent to the web-page on the internet. Thus the Charged Heart and the
Curiosity Cabinet  installations compliment each other - one by plugging
the participant/visitor into the electromagnetic atmosphere - the other by
unplugging him/her.

"My work comes from the experience of growing up in North America -
explained Catherine Richards in an interview (Now, January 22, 1998)- The
environment here has been so heavily influenced by Marshall McLuhan and
artists like Michael Snow, who legitimized the whole notion of crossing
media, that the relationship between the spectator and the image is what
defines art."

Close to one of the gallery walls  "Black Body "Doug Back's
"whipper-snipper" installation shakes, shivers and reacts  to the touch of
each visitor with a different speed and style. "Black Body -said Doug Back
-acts as a mirror, reflecting the electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the
body. "Imperfections" in our bodies make us less or more of an antenna, the
sculpture describes this signature".

Earthworms feed on compost in a metal and plexiglass container placed on
the floor - as part of "Warm", Victoria Scott's installation. As the worms
feed and generate heat,  a thermometer in the container transmits signals
and activates the glow of the "Celtic Knot"  (a continuous length of
heating coil) mounted on a vertical concrete board.  Scott's intriguing
installation taps into the energy cycle of developing organic life.

 "Just as Alaskan Inuit waved sharp knives to ward off the mysterious and
incomprehensible effects of the Aurora-commented Paul Davies of his
Persistent Invisible Fields- our culture grasps technological instruments,
in an attempt to understand the hidden nature of the invisible. Our culture
created the Radiation Survey Meter in a fashion directly analogous to those
same terrified Inuit, in an attempt to ward off the mysterious and
incomprehensible effects of invisible fields. We collectively grasp the
meter with ever-whitening knuckles, searching for the unseen and unfelt
danger of radiation."  The radiation meter provided by Paul Davies for the
visitor tests the radiation sensitivity of each (white) object of his
display.

"My installation -said  audio artist  Neil Wiernik of "How to be an amateur
radio"-  "is about transmission of RF signals and about how the environment
and we as people interact with these signals. Do we transmit these signals
ourselves....is this all part of our evolving communication methods...are
there other forms of intelligent life on the earth or otherwise who already
communicate via RF signals. I am looking at my project as a direct dialogue
with the issues of naturally occuring RF signals. Even though the
installation is located physically in the gallery it really is everywhere
as sound and RF signals are located in the atmosphere and travel throughout
space to our ears and bodies. In a sense we are actual RF receivers."

The website of the aurora exhibition will be consistently updated with
documentation. .
Please send us our comments or inquiries.

nina czegledy
curator