IN THE WINDOW #1
Mark Leacy @ 2021-05-05 18:13:05 +1000
Frederick Rodrigues
w/ Collaborators:
Pouya Ehsaei @pouyaehsaei
Briohny Doyle @briohny.doyle
Arash Akbari @fnekf
Exhibited in the Steep St. Katoomba Window (Then known as STST.Ari)
Dates: 7th-14th May
Frederick Rodrigues is an Australian media artist based in the Netherlands; focused on social adoption of technology and the subsequent feedback to our perception. Frederick’s medium is also technology; writing code, creating electronics and making systems talk. His work is often collaborative and to this end he is interested in methodologies for collaboration across disparate practices. This approach has allowed Frederick to work with many talented artists across a number of fields.
This video is a collection of recordings of work made from the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 until January 2021. The work includes footage from small experiments, previews of larger projects and ongoing research.
Words from the artist:
_Experiments with volumetric video
Since 2018 I have been doing research on creating real time volumetric video. As part of my artist in residency at the De Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunstan, I was able to continue this work. The aim was to create a real time effects system with timeline controls and exposed parameters. The day I started the residency the reports of Covid-19 in Europe began to circulate. These videos were made
on March 13 2020, the next day all Universities were closed and 2 days later the first lockdown started in the Netherlands.
Music by Pouya Ehsaei
GLSL by Arash Akbari
_remote touch
In the first lockdown myself and many others were shocked and scared. One of the things we lost so fast was touch, a hug and kiss hello and goodbye, brushing past each other on the street, packed into nightclubs and venues and a freer intimacy. This experiment was made to convey touch over the internet; as I knew I could not easily reproduce the tactile sensation, I decided to transliterate the experience: it may work better for those with synesthesia.
_synk
synk is a VR installation for two participants/protagonists, that explores the dissonance between our virtual and real existences in the framework of a speculative narrative. Situated in an immersive fictional space, synk is a commentary on the changing definition of the human in relation to the environment and technology.
Text by Briohny Doyle
Music by Pouya Ehsaei
_a_colour
After some months of lockdown and several experiments looking at how to make different kinds of connections I made a_colour. I was interested in the loss of communal experiences and looking for a way to understand the presence of others in virtual space without explicit signifiers. a_colour creates a communal task, it has no hierarchy and is completely anonymous, things that I had identified as being part of the life that was now restricted in bars seeing music or sitting together in a theatre.
